BATON ROUGE — LSU men’s basketball head coach John Brady announced Monday night on his weekly call-in radio show that forward Jaime Lloreda injured his left knee in the second half of the Georgia game and would miss at least Wednesday night’s contest with Houston at the Maravich Assembly Center with Georgia.
Lloreda suffered a hyperextension of his left knee and a bone bruise, an MRI on Monday evening showed. According to LSU men’s basketball trainer Drew Shea, the MRI revealed no tear in the ligaments or cartilage. Shea said that Dr. Larry Ferachi would reevaluate the knee sometime on Tuesday.
“It was strange. With about four minutes left in the game.I had Brad Bridgewater sitting at the scorer’s table ready to go in for Jaime,” said Brady. “Right before (Jaime) came out, there was a loose ball and Jaime kind of bent over for it and some guy rolled on his knee and hyper extended his knee. Brad checks in and Jaime comes off and we didn’t think anything about it. He didn’t say much to our trainer about it. (Monday) when he comes to practice he’s got some swelling in it and he can’t put his full weight on it.
“The preliminary when Drew and Dr. Ferachi looked at it was possibly a torn cartilage or a strained ACL which would be two to four weeks, possibly six. Obviously, it was necessary to get an MRI done to check on the severity. The MRI showed there was no damage to the ligament and the cartilage is fine, but it showed a deep bone bruise. He won’t play Wednesday (against Houston) and he’s doubtful for Saturday (against nationally-ranked Mississippi State),” Brady said.
Lloreda after 11 games is the leading field goal shooter in the Southeastern Conference at 65.9 percent. He is second on the team in scoring at 13.1 points per game and first on the team and third in the league in rebounding at 8.7 rebounds a game. Lloreda had 17 points and five rebounds in 32 minutes in Sunday’s 89-63 loss to Georgia.
Both games for LSU, 9-2 on the year, are scheduled for 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the LSU Athletic Ticket Office and on the Internet at www.LSUsports.net.