NC State’s DJ Horne a game-time decision for ACC tournament opener
WASHINGTON — NC State will not know whether or not it will have graduate guard DJ Horne available for its ACC tournament first round game against Louisville on Tuesday afternoon until right before tipoff.
The Cary, N.C., native exited Saturday night’s game at Pitt with about three minutes to play in the first half with what was described as a “lower extremity” injury. Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts described it as a “bruised hip flexor” after the team’s practice on the Capital One Arena court Monday afternoon.
Keatts said the official plan for Horne is to take a look at him during the team’s walkthrough before its game against the Cardinals to see if he can go. Horne had not gotten shots up in the interim until the Pack took the floor for its open practice on Monday afternoon.
Horne, who earned third team All-ACC honors just as he took the court for practice, was not sure whether or not he will be able to play against Louisville.
“I’m feeling a lot better than when I first injured myself, so that’s a good sign,” Horne said. “I’m definitely going to keep attacking the treatment until game time and then hopefully see where it is by that time.”
If Horne is not able to go, Keatts floated the idea of returning to the Pack’s bigger lineup that features a pair of forwards. In that scenario, junior guard Jayden Taylor would take Horne’s spot as the team’s starting shooting guard, while junior forward Mohamed Diarra would play alongside graduate forward DJ Burns.
Though Keatts is not 100% sure which starting lineup he would go with — the Diarra lineup is likely in the event the Pack is without Horne — he was confident in NC State’s ability to bounce back without its leading scorer.
Why? NC State did it for 30 minutes at Pitt on Saturday night.
The Wolfpack was able to climb back from a 17-point deficit early in the second half with an 11-0 run late in the game, which made it a 3-point contest. Taylor was the Wolfpack’s bus driver as it worked its way back against the Panthers as he scored a career-best 28 points, 22 of which came in the second half.
“We had a chance to play without him,” Keatts said. “We played a lot of guys. We ended up playing the nine other scholarship guys that were available. We got some type of chemistry late in the game.”
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The second-half chemistry allowed the Wolfpack to score 44 points in the final 20 minutes at Pitt, and Taylor’s big night accounted for half of that.
Keatts acknowledged that NC State would need Taylor to continue his scoring prowess — he is averaging 19.0 points on 59.9% from the field over the last four games — against Louisville in the event Horne can not provide his. But he is not the only player the red and white will have to lean on.
“He need him, we need Casey Morsell, we need Michael [O’Connell], especially if we don’t have a DJ Horne, to play really good in a tournament situation,” Keatts said.
Those three guards will be pivotal since NC State’s depth at the position took a hit before the team even arrived in Washington, D.C. Junior guard LJ Thomas stayed in Raleigh and “is away from the team,” while freshman guard Dennis Parker Jr. did not make the trip due to being “under the weather.”
But in the meantime, Horne will likely be found in the NC State training room at its team hotel ahead of the Pack’s 4:30 p.m. tip against the Cardinals on Tuesday afternoon. It will still not be entirely known if he can play against Louisville until he can work at game speed.
“I feel like some more treatments, some more rest and getting some more movement in the area will do me some justice,” Horne said. “But I really won’t know until game time when I can really test to see if I can move at full speed.”
