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LSU senior guard Keith Hornsby, the son of singer Bruce Hornsby and the team’s top shooter, could miss the remainder of the season after aggravating a hernia injury, head coach Johnny Jones said Monday on a conference call.
“We don’t know,” Jones said Monday, adding that the doctors were “doing their due diligence.”
“ESPN could be right, there’s a chance he could be out for the rest of the season but I don’t know that as of yet,” Jones said, adding that there was “no timetable” on a return.
ESPN’s Jeff Goodman reported earlier Monday via sources that Hornsby could miss the rest of the season.
Hornsby, who missed the first seven games of the season with a hernia injury, is averaging 13.1 points in 20 games and is shooting 41.5 percent from deep.
Jones, whose team is among the next four out of Joe Lunardi’s mock NCAA Tournament bracket, said multiple people would have to step in to fill Hornsby’s absence.
“We’re not exactly sure which direction we will go,” he said. “We have a couple of options…but it’s going to be very difficult to fill the void that Hornsby would leave if he’s not available in what he brings to our team. I think we were able to see that early on in the year when he wasn’t available to our team because of injury.
“He plays with an edge, he plays extremely hard, he’s a selfless guy, he’s the ultimate team guy so we’ll miss that if he’s not out there on the floor. We’ll certainly have to fill that void by committee. I don’t think there’s any one person who can do that.”
In the big picture, the loss of Hornsby just complicates matters for Ben Simmons and an LSU team that could become the first school since Pacific in 1998 that features the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft and misses the NCAA Tournament.
The Tigers have four regular-season games left and the SEC Tournament to earn a bid.
“It takes someone to be really honest within themselves to take a look in that mirror and find out exactly what it is that I’m doing to be at my best on a daily basis,” Jones said. “We don’t want to be pointing any fingers. As I told the team, it’s not about ‘I,’ it’s about ‘We.’…If we take that kind of approach we have the chance to make some positive things happen and when we don’t, then you have some things to concerned about.
“But I like our team and we’re hopeful that we can take some ownership down the stretch and some good things can happen for us.”
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