The good news for South Carolina is Keyshawn Bryant and Jalyn McCreary are both good to go moving forward, but there is some bad news.

There is an air of uncertainty right now with Justin Minaya after the redshirt sophomore dislocated his thumb last weekend, and it looks like now he’ll likely need surgery on it at some point and the Gamecocks are trying to determine if he’ll be out for an elongated period of time.

“I don’t want to guess,” Frank Martin said. “I’m sure we’ll put out something later on today or tomorrow with more clarity. If he was a football player, they’d club it and he’d play the rest of the year and they’d fix it after the year. It looks like it’s going to need surgery to get repaired. We’re trying to figure out how to manage that moving forward.”

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Martin met with the media at 11:30 a.m. Monday and said Minaya was having more tests done on his hand as he spoke, so no definitive course of action is known quite yet.

If he’s unable to play moving forward, it’s a big blow for the Gamecocks (13-8, 5-3 SEC) who are losing arguably their most consistent player on both ends of the court.

Minaya is the team’s best perimeter defender and, after struggling some offensively early in the season had begun to turn it on lately; over his last five games he was averaging almost 33 minutes per game, averaging 11.2 points on 47.5 percent shooting with seven rebounds and 2.6 assists per game.

Per game so far in SEC play, Minaya is top three on the team in blocks, minutes, two-point percentage, rebounds—offensive, defensive, total—assists, and steals.

“Justin is playing with such incredible energy. When you couple his energy and aggression at the rim with rebounding, blocking shots, his defense—helping and defending on the perimeter—he was starting to shoot the basketball and regain the confidence he had from a shooting standpoint,” Martin said. “There’s a reason he was playing as many minutes as he was playing. Because of his efforts, we’ve become a better team.”

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This isn’t the first time Minaya’s dealt with a serious injury that could cause him to miss extended time; he’d redshirt last year after suffering a season-ending knee injury five games into the season.

It was then Keyshawn Bryant elevated his game since he had to start, and it could offer a chance for a few other guys to see more time as well.

With a spot in the starting lineup potentially up for grabs, Martin mentioned the team’s true freshmen bigs in Wildens Leveque and Jalyn McCreary could see more time along with sophomore Alanzo Frink.

He also said another true freshman, Trey Anderson, is practicing better lately and is an option there.

“The two freshmen—Jalyn and Wildens—and Alanzo, they’re going to have to be more consistent with their contributions. Then, from a guard standpoint, I’m perfectly fine. Trey Anderson has been better. Maybe it’s his turn to step in and give us some positive minutes and positive plays. I’m always into trying to move forward,” Martin said. “My heart goes out to Justin. I don’t think I’ve been around too many guys that care about their team as much as he does our team. Hopefully we can figure out a way to keep him on the court. That’s not a decision for me to make. That’s a decision that has to be made between doctors, himself and his family.”

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The Gamecocks have dealt with injuries all season with Keyshawn Bryant battling a knee and head injury, Jermaine Couisnard missing a game with a back injury and Trae Hannibal missing two dealing with a sprained ankle.

Martin joked injuries are “part of the equation” at South Carolina and there’s a big cloud that “constantly craps on you any time your team plays well,” and it’s about now handling adversity if Minaya isn’t available for a long stretch of time.

With Bryant out a few games ago, Wildens Leveque started against Auburn and played pretty well. The Gamecocks don’t know what the next plan is as they get ready to play at Ole Miss Wednesday (7 p.m., SEC Network) but know they have options.

“Our entire team has a next man up mentality so if someone goes down or is having a bad game we have a lot of talented guys on the team that can step up,” Jair Bolden said. “I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with Justin but if he’s not able to play in the game I’m sure we’ll have another guy step up and Frank will make the correct adjustments he’ll make for that game.”