Final Four Getting Closer and Okafor dinged up again.

STORRS, Conn. (AP) Just when Connecticut's All-America center Emeka Okafor seemed to be getting sharp, he took another jolt Wednesday.

Huskies coach Jim Calhoun said Okafor was bumped hard in practice. Calhoun said the injury was similar to the stinger Okafor got against Alabama in the Phoenix Regional final, when a hard foul jarred his neck and sent a stinging pain down his arm.

''We fully expect that he may take it easier tomorrow, but will fully practice again on Friday,'' Calhoun said.

Okafor was hit with about eight minutes left in the workout. Calhoun raved that until then Okafor was dunking and looking ''much better than he has been, I would say, for almost a month.'' Okafor missed three games, two in the Big East tournament, because of spasms in the muscles around a small stress fracture in his back.

Calhoun joked that whoever hit Okafor this time wouldn't be traveling to San Antonio for the Final Four. The team left Wednesday evening. UConn plays Duke in a national semifinal Saturday night.

''Someone actually hit his arm, which got his shoulder to move a little bit,'' Calhoun said. ''I think with a little bit of ice, TLC, talk, he'll be just fine.''

Okafor, a 6-foot-9, 252-pound junior who will graduate in May, averaged 18.1 points, 11.7 rebounds and a national-best 4.3 blocks this season. He was chosen Wednesday as one of the 10 finalists for the John R. Wooden Award as the nation's top college basketball player.

UPDATE

SAN ANTONIO -- The gentle flow of the San Antonio River didn't jostle Emeka Okafor's nagging back and shoulder injuries Thursday. Neither did Connecticut's full-contact practice earlier in the day at nearby Trinity University.
"My mobility is the best it has been in the past couple of weeks," Okafor said after taking a riverboat ride with his team Thursday. "I have been able to practice more and do a lot of individual workouts on my own ... just get back to the flow of things offensively."
Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun echoed the junior's sentiments, saying he's not concerned about Okafor's status for Saturday's national semifinal against Duke.
"He is a warrior and he'll play through it," Calhoun said. "He is going to be fine when all is said and done."
Calhoun expected Okafor will still be sore Saturday after reinjuring the shoulder during a Tuesday practice in Storrs, Conn. Okafor originally suffered what has been termed a "stinger" during the Huskies' Elite Eight win over Alabama.
The shoulder injury was the latest in a season-long battle with injuries. Back spasms led to the discovery of a stress fracture in Okafor's back on March 8. The injured back kept Okafor out of the first two games of the Big East tournament. His rebounding average since the injury has remained at about 11 per game, but his shot blocks have dipped from four to two a game, and his offensive numbers slipped from 18 points to under 10 a game in the NCAA Tournament.
Calhoun has noticed Okafor isn't reacting as quickly on offense. He isn't swinging to the open spots, using his drop step, or doing some of the things that he had been doing in averaging 18.5 points a game. Calhoun said Okafor did some one-on-one drills Thursday. The Huskies then threw other players at Okafor to test him for Saturday.
Okafor didn't deny that his shoulder and back injuries have affected his offensive game.
"When I was out, I slacked off a bit and my confidence died down a little bit," Okafor said. "It was a matter of getting that back, which I have got now. When you get injuries it is just a mental factor, and getting over the hump takes some time. After that it takes some fine tuning. Everything has gone better, and I'm able to spend more time on my offense and get my confidence back."
When it comes to his back, Okafor said his mobility is better than it's been since he struggled at the end of the regular season. Okafor was ineffective in the regular-season final loss at Syracuse. He then sat out those two tournament before returning for the championship game against Pittsburgh.
Okafor, who said he's been doing more individual workouts in addition to the team practices, said the neck injury is giving him more problems than the back injury.
Meanwhile, Georgia Tech guard B.J. Elder practiced Thursday and will start for the Yellow Jackets against Oklahoma State. He played a total of 15 minutes in two games last week in the St. Louis regional because of a sprained right ankle.
"He practiced pretty well, and he went through about three-quarters of the practice," Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt said after Thursday's practice. "He was a little sore but based on the progress he has made, we will be fine. He's going to start and we'll just see how he does."
Hewitt said the MRI showed no structural damage to Elder's ankle, no bruise and no tear, "so it's just a matter of pain tolerance at this point."
Like Okafor, however, the injury has affected Elder's offense. The Yellow Jackets' leading scorer (15.3 ppg) is having trouble lifting off for his jump shot. Hewitt said Elder was getting sore at the end of practice. Hewitt could have pushed Elder more, but said he didn't want to just two days before Georgia Tech's semifinal game.
All this injury talk will subside by tipoff Saturday when Okafor, Elder and Duke's Chris Duhon are all expected to start. While Duhon continued to practice without contact, the tenderness in his ribs didn't affect his defense. He shut down every guard he faced in the Atlanta Regional, which included Illinois' Deron Williams and Xavier's Lionel Chalmers and Romain Sato.


Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.