Four-star Auburn freshman Chance Westry is potentially headed for a medical redshirt this season.

Bruce Pearl was asked Thursday night about the status of Westry, who hasn’t appeared in a game since Jan. 4 at Georgia, during the coach’s weekly appearance on the “Tiger Talk” radio show. According to Pearl, Auburn has shut Westry down for the season due to a lingering right knee issue, and as a result, there’s a possibility the 6-foot-6 guard/wing will redshirt this season.

“Listen, he had surgery, he came back, and he just couldn’t really move on that thing, wasn’t the same player as he was before,” Pearl said. “So, yes, we did shut him down. It’s a very, very real possibility that he could redshirt this year.”

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For a player to qualify for a medical redshirt under NCAA rules, a player’s injury must occur before the second half of a team’s season, and he must have competed in less than 30 percent of a team’s games. Westry has played in 11 games this season after missing the first two games after undergoing preseason knee surgery. Auburn has 31 games on its regular-season slate, and while that means Westry will have appeared in approximately 35 percent of the Tigers’ regular-season games, Auburn will have postseason games in the SEC Tournament and likely the NCAA Tournament.

That 30 percent threshold appears to be why Westry’s redshirt is still considered a “very, very real possibility” and not a lock at this point.

The versatile guard/wing is one of three true freshmen on Auburn’s roster this year after signing with the Tigers as part of their 2022 class. Westry was rated as the No. 39 overall player in the country coming out of high school, and upon arriving at Auburn, he quickly established himself as one of the team’s top playmakers this summer during the program’s overseas tour of Israel.

However, he injured his knee during the preseason, reaggravating a prior injury in which “his kneecap kind of dislocates,” according to Pearl. After first attempting to rehab it for nearly a month to no avail, Westry opted to undergo arthroscopic surgery on Oct. 6 — the same day Pearl had a similar procedure done on his knee. Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews performed the procedures, with Westry projected to miss 3-4 weeks before being cleared to return.

His return took a bit longer than that, with the freshman making his long-anticipated debut almost six weeks later against Winthrop on Nov. 15 at Neville Arena. Westry appeared in each of the Tigers’ ensuing 10 games, including the first two in SEC play against Florida and Georgia — though he recorded just one minute of action in each of his last three appearances off the bench, as he struggled to return to form after missing much of the preseason.

He averaged just 2.5 points and one assist in 9.5 minutes per game while shooting just 31.6 percent from the floor during his 11 appearances.

“Chance Westry offensively was, if not the, one of our best guards this summer,” Pearl said Jan. 13. “So, he did a great job coming in, did a great job as a freshman. Then the very beginning of the semester, he hurts his knee…. He comes back, and maybe I make the mistake of trying to play him at some point guard, but that was where there may have only been 10 minutes a game, and he wasn’t ready. He’s more ready now, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to put him in right now. It’s just hard to miss all that time, miss all those reps, and then I’m going to put him in right now in the middle of the SEC?

“So, Chance has done nothing wrong. He’s done a lot of things right. I have not lost one ounce of confidence, and I’m confident that in a year from now, he’ll be one of our better players. But unless something dramatic changes with our roster, I just think I need to protect him from being out there where the guys have had so many more repetitions, it’s just not fair.”

While Westry’s injury has certainly been disappointing for the freshman and a tough blow for Auburn this season, Pearl’s expressed confidence in Westry’s long-term outlook and the support from within the program has the freshman maintaining perspective throughout the ordeal.

“Just keep going,” Westry said in a Q&A posted to Auburn’s team site on Jan. 16. “You’re going to have ups and downs. You can’t have a great story without ups and downs. I know I’m going to have my ups and I know I’m going to have my downs, but at the end, it’s going to be a great story.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.