FORT COLLINS — The Colorado State basketball team on Thursday confirmed that leading scorer Prentiss Nixon will miss Saturday’s game against UNLV with a sprained ankle, an injury he suffered in the final minute of Wednesday’s 76-71 loss to Air Force.

Prentiss Nixon’s injury from last night. If it’s a high ankle sprain, he’ll likely miss significant time pic.twitter.com/e7LsVEG0Rz — Sean Star (@seanvstar) January 18, 2018

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A team spokesperson said that Nixon didn’t break anything and will continue to be evaluated based on his progress in rehab.

“It’s swollen really bad. He was in there on crutches after the game, crying,” CSU coach Larry Eustachy said after Wednesday’s game. “It’s too early (to diagnose), but you didn’t hear anything snap. I think if it was really bad, he wouldn’t have come into the locker room. It’s swollen. He’ll probably be out for Saturday.”

Nixon, who was already dealing with a sprained right knee that required a heavy brace the past couple games, sprained his left ankle when he came down awkwardly next to a pair of Air Force defenders after attempting a 3-pointer with 17 seconds left and his team down three.

The junior guard leads the Rams and ranks fifth in the Mountain West with a scoring average of 17.9 points per game. He also leads the league in free-throw percentage (88.2), ranks fifth in steals (1.5) and is fourth in minutes played (33.5). He’s scored in double figures all but once this season with five games of 20 points or more.

This will be the second time this season that Nixon will be sidelined after sitting out a Nov. 24 win over Northwestern State with a concussion, which snapped a streak of 42 consecutive starts.

The Nixon-less Rams (10-10, 3-4 MW) will be looking to snap a three-game home losing streak Saturday against UNLV (13-5, 2-3). The 3 p.m. tip at Moby Arena is the team’s annual Orange Out game.

Sean Star: sstar@reporter-herald.com or twitter.com/seanvstar