There was a gloomy side to Miami University’s strong men’s basketball triumph over James Madison on Saturday afternoon at Millett Hall.

Redshirt junior forward Bill Edwards, who missed most of last season with a wrist injury, hurt his left knee in the first three minutes of the 76-58 win.

Edwards drove toward the basket and ended up on the floor, writhing in pain. He had to be helped off the court.

“He’s in a brace and on crutches right now, so obviously we hope for the best,” MU coach John Cooper said in the postgame press conference. “He will have an MRI on Monday morning at 8 a.m. That’s it right now. I have no other information from our team doctors.”

Edwards sank his only shot, a 3-pointer, and added an assist before departing with 17:25 remaining in the first half. The Middletown High School graduate began the contest as Miami’s No. 2 scorer with a 10.8 average.

“He’s tough, man. He’s going to be back,” RedHawks junior forward Jon Harris said. “I just talked to him in the locker room, and he’s positive right now. He’s a guy we could definitely use out there, just his leadership on and off the court. This is a pretty young team, and we can use all the experience we can have. So prayers go out to Bill and his family.”

The rookie’s hot: Freshman guard Reggie Johnson fired in a career-high 21 points and raised his scoring average to 11.6 on Saturday. He was 5-of-7 from 3-point range.

“They went into that zone, so there was a lot of gaps,” Johnson said. “I was able to get a few early open looks, and it kind of got me going. I just came out and stayed aggressive, and teammates found me.”

The Chicago native said he was fortunate to get those open looks.

“The way our offense is, it’s almost like four guys can play the perimeter and anybody can take the shot, so we move the ball around and get the best open shot,” Johnson said. “It just happened to fall into a lot of me and Jon’s hands today.”

Johnson and Harris combined for eight of Miami’s nine 3-pointers.

“He has a calmness about his game,” Cooper said of Johnson, who committed to the coach at Tennessee State before following him to Oxford. “He’s had too many turnovers in the past three games. I got on him in no uncertain terms at halftime and told him what I expected when he had the ball, and he didn’t turn it over in the second half.”

Performing well: Allen Roberts scored 9 points, hitting 7-of-7 free throws, and added 4 assists for the RedHawks. Will Sullivan didn’t have great numbers (two rebounds, two steals), but impressed Cooper with his 12 minutes of action in the midst of Miami’s foul problems.

“I thought Will Sullivan did a great job of coming in and supplying great defense for us, a couple really crucial boxouts and rotations, and doing all the right things,” Cooper said.

Liking the pace: MU’s up-tempo style this season has a lot of fans, including Harris.

“I like it, especially where we came from,” he said. “I know the guys love this style of play. I think we’ve done better finishing this year. We’ve still got to take care of the ball at the end and make some more free throws, but it’s much better this year than last year.”

The RedHawks were whistled for 23 fouls Saturday.

“We’ve got to get better at pressuring teams without fouling,” Harris said. “We gave up 28 free-throw attempts — that kept them in the game. We’ve just got to use our feet, not our hands.”

Ending the drought: Miami’s 72-59 win at William & Mary on Wednesday was the program’s first nonconference road win over a Division I team since beating Northwestern State 69-68 on Dec. 30, 2008.