Win comes with price

NEW YORK -- Forget about the final score in last night's semifinal National Invitation Tournament game, because Penn State lost. There was nothing Pete Lisicky could do about it. A Calvin Booth block wouldn't make it go away.

The Nittany Lions lost big.

At the 13 minute, 14 second mark in the first half, Booth grabbed a steal from Georgia forward Larry Brown. Booth and Stephens had Bulldog guard G.G. Smith on a two-on-one break. Booth dished off to Stephens and just as the 6-foot-7 power forward was ready to score two easy points, he was hit hard from behind by Brown, who was called for an intentional foul.

"I really don't think it was necessary," Booth said. "If he was going to foul, he should have grabbed him when he was on the ground. I consider it a cheap shot."

Stephens fell hard on the Madison Square Garden floor. Players huddled, medical technicians hovered, and Penn State fans were hushed.

"Larry Brown tried to block the layup as he has done all year," said Bulldog coach Ron Jirsa. "He tried to block the shot from behind. We don't try to injure anybody."

Whatever the case, Lion coach Jerry Dunn disagreed with the rationale of the foul.

"I just don't think that's the way things should be done," he said. "I'll leave it at that."

Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, the team doctor, said Stephens suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in his left knee and Stephens will undergo a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test when the team returns home to determine the full extent of the injury.

"It feels all right," Stephens said. "They're just taking precautions right now. I sat here and thought about it for awhile. The only thing I'm thinking about right now is that it's the end of the season, and there's only one game left. I wish I could play in the last game and help my teammates."

Stephens came back to the Penn State bench at the 15:58 mark in the second half and joined Dan Earl at the end of the row.

"He seems pretty well," Earl said at halftime, "as well as you can be I guess."

He should know. Earl, the Lions' senior point guard, went down with an ACL tear last December.

And Lisicky should know, also. Besides being Earl and Stephens' teammate, he also lives with them on campus.

"Eventually we rallied around it," Lisicky said. "At first my thoughts were, 'Is he all right?' It kind of made me sick. It looked so much like Danny."