In an instant, Geary Claxton's Penn State basketball career was over.
A collision in the lane and an awkward fall was all it took to topple the Nittany Lions' marquee player and bring the final season of one of the Big Ten's brightest stars to an unceremonious end.
George Beatty, president of the Nittany Nation fan club, watched on from the student section and felt the life come out of those around him, as Claxton sprawled out on the floor clutching his left knee in agony.
"You somewhat become emotionally attached to the team," Beatty said. "Just seeing the trainers work on him was making me sick to my stomach."
Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, director of Penn State sports medicine, conducted an MRI yesterday confirming Claxton tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee and suffered a bone bruise.
It will require about six months of rehabilitation before Claxton can begin hard training again, Sebastianelli said. After that, it will take three to six months of game preparation to reach playing shape.
The team has now been thrust into a new era of Penn State basketball -- a post-Claxton era -- much earlier than expected. The Lions will miss his dominance on the court and the way the forward filled the statistic sheet, but the emotional loss may be more significant.
Claxton was part of coach Ed DeChellis' first recruiting class at Penn State, and the coach was visibly upset at how his career ended.
"I just took time to tell him I loved him and hugged him," DeChellis said Tuesday. "He has been a great kid for us for the three-and-a-half years he has been with us. He was a great ball player, great student, a great person for our program. I just feel horrible for him. I really can't put it in words."
With Claxton gone, the Lions will have to replace one of the conference's biggest scoring and rebounding threats. Claxton, who was named to the Naismith Award watch list this year, led the team in points each of his first three years and posted its highest rebounding totals in 2006 and 2007.
This season, he led Penn State and was second in the Big Ten in both categories. Claxton's teammates were "really down" about the injury, DeChellis said.
"It's not a secret that he is the best and most dominant player on the team," forward Jamelle Cornley said.
Claxton's injury will weigh heavily on Penn State for the rest of the season. Individually, though, he may stand to lose even more. He had the potential to be drafted into the NBA in June, but that aspiration is in jeopardy at least for the immediate future.
NBADraft.net, a Web site that specializes in mock drafts, projected Claxton as a second-round pick in 2008 in its most recent update. That was on Jan. 14, one day before Claxton crumpled to the floor in his last game, writhing in pain.
Aran Smith of NBADraft.net wrote in an e-mail that the injury dealt a serious blow to Claxton's draft hopes but wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility.
"It's too early to say, but this injury certainly hurts his draft stock considerably," Smith wrote. " ... But it's not unprecedented for a team to take a chance on a guy who's out with an injury."
The Lions must now move on without their standout senior. DeChellis will rely on a young group of forwards including true freshman Jeff Brooks and redshirt freshmen D.J. Jackson and Andrew Jones to take on more minutes and expanded roles.
"Things definitely changed," DeChellis said. "We have to step up and accept it. We are going to have to filter these guys with new roles as quickly as we can."
