Coach Mike Montgomery was happy with the way Harper Kamp’s troublesome right knee responded the day after a 24-minute outing in Saturday night’s season-opening win over Pacific.

But he was at a complete loss to understand the reason Kamp felt good.  “I wish I could tell you why,” Montgomery said Monday at his weekly press conference. “We don’t know.”

Kamp, who underwent arthroscopic surgery on the knee to clean up some cartilage in August, has struggled with pain over the past several weeks. He practiced for a few minutes a week ago Monday, then basically not again in the week leading to the Pacific game.

Montgomery planned to play him sparingly, and wasn’t even sure if the 6-foot-8 sophomore forward would be available to go some in both halves. But when starter Jamal Boykin got into early foul trouble — he eventually fouled out in just 10 minutes — the Bears needed Kamp.

“There’s no way we expected him to get the minutes he got Saturday,” Montgomery said. “He kept saying he felt good, so we kept using him.”

Kamp was all smiles on Monday. “As of late, it hasn’t really been feeling the way I wanted it to,” he said. “I was pretty happy the way it felt after Saturday’s game.”

Kamp figured to practice very little on Monday, but expects to play Tuesday night against USF.

Montgomery said the Bears have some time before being forced to decide on something as drastic as surgery and a possible red-shirt year. The problem, he said, is that medical people are offering no sure-thing solution with another arthroscopic procedure, nothing that guarantees a quick result.

In the meantime, the Bears will take it slowly with Kamp, and hope for the best.

“If he just can’t go, we’re not going to risk injuring his knee further, so there are any long-term issues,” Montgomery said. “But we need him. He’s not happy with the way he’s playing. But I said, `Harper, we’re sunk without you Saturday. So what you’ve given us is going to at least give us a chance at the post right now.’ He knows that.

“He’d like to be able to play 100 percent and jump and run. He just can’t.”

Kamp said he received an injection last Thursday to help promote lubrication behind the kneecap, and wonders if that might have helped. It’s the first shot in a series of five, and he said he’ll receive another after Thursday’s game against Texas-Pan American. But he’s had this treatment before, he said, with little benefit.

One stategy that seems to help is riding the exercise bike on the sideline when he comes out of the game.

“That’s just one of the things I do to keep warm. Jordan Wilkes does it also,” Kamp said. “We find out with my knee, once I warm it up and get it going, if I cool down too much, it’s real hard to get it going again.”

Otherwise, he said, “We’ve been having a lot of trouble knowing what helps it and what doesn’t. It’s been a lot of trial and error to see what makes the pain goes away.”

Kamp said doctors mentioned the possibility of microfracture surgery some months ago, but view it very much as a last resort. The procedure, which Theo Robertson underwent on his hip 18 months ago, is designed to create cartilage growth through improved blood flow. But recovery takes a year or more, and Kamp said he was told it’s not an ideal choice for an injury around the knee.

Kamp acknowledged his conditioning is impacted some by the lack of practice, and so is his feel for the game.

“I didn’t feel too rusty. I think that’s because I was trying not to do too much,” he said of Saturday’s game. “But when you’re not playing against defense for five days straight, you lose that feel a little bit.”