Jan. 16, 2008
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA., Jan. 16, 2008 - Standout Penn State forward Geary Claxton (West Haven, Conn.) will see his Penn State career ended 16 games into his senior season after suffering a season ending knee injury Tuesday. Director of Penn State Sports Medicine Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli said that an MRI conducted Wednesday morning confirmed a torn ACL ligament in the left knee of the preseason All-Big Ten selection. Sebastianelli said Claxton also suffered a bone bruise in the knee and anticipated he would undergo surgery to repair the damage and begin rehabilitation sometime at the end of January or early February. Anticipated recovery time for such an injury is six months to return to hard training followed by 3-6 months of game preparation, according to Sebastianelli.
Claxton, who ranked second in the Big Ten in scoring (18.7 ppg) and rebounding (8.9 rpg), suffered the injury at the 13:21 mark of the first half of Penn State's 80-55 loss to No. 17 Wisconsin Tuesday night in the Bryce Jordan Center. Claxton was attempting to offensive rebound his own shot when he got tangled with Badger center Brian Butch and landed awkwardly on the knee. The injury ended a string of four straight double-doubles and marked the first scoreless game of his Nittany Lion career.
"I just feel horrible for him," said Penn State coach Ed DeChellis whose Nittany Lions got off to a 2-0 start in the Big Ten for the first time since 2004 behind Claxton. "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 really can¹t put it in words. He has worked really hard. He wanted to do great things this year. He could have done some great things for us. But, now we¹ve got to figure out what our next move is and regroup as a team. We've got to band together and bond together and go back to work."
The injury ends one of the most outstanding careers in Nittany Lion basketball history. The preseason Naismith Award candidate will finish his career as the fifth all-time scorer (1,542 points) and fourth all-time rebounder (755) in Penn State history. Claxton is just the sixth player to lead Penn State in scoring in three straight seasons and, having a career year, was well on his way to joining All-American Jesse Arnelle as just the second to lead the Lions in four seasons.
At the time of the injury he was tied for the Big Ten lead with nine double-doubles on the year and ranked second with eight 20-point games on the season. His 26 career double-doubles lead all active Big Ten players and he was the leading active scorer in the conference by more than 200 points. Claxton had earned two Big Ten Player of the Week selections on the season to tie Joe Crispin's Penn State career mark with four conference honors on his career. He also ranked third in offensive (3.27) and defensive rebounding (5.67), seventh in minutes played (32.2), and 12th in field goal percentage (50.0) in the conference at the time of the injury and was leading the Nittany Lions in 10 major categories.
An All-Big Ten second-team selection last year and third-team pick in 2006, Claxton was also named to the USBWA All-District I team in 2006. He is the 15th Penn State player to post 1,000 points and 500 rebounds on their career and was within a few games of becoming just the third to post 1,000 points and 800 career rebounds. He ends his career ranked in the top five in six major career categories at Penn State including: scoring (5th), rebounding (4th), field goals (4th, 545), field goal attempts (4th, 1,230), free throws (5th, 378) and free throw attempts (3rd, 581). He also stands seventh in blocks with 74.
The 2005 Big Ten All-Freshman team selection posted 23, 20-point games and 86 double-digit scoring outings on his career and led the Nittany Lions in scoring in 50 games, rebounding in 51 games, blocks in 45 games and steals in 30 games on his career.
Penn State (10-6; 2-2 Big Ten) will return to action Sunday, Jan. 20 when they take on No. 9 ranked Indiana in Bloomington. The Nittany Lions have never won in Bloomington in 14 tries and trail the all-time series 26-3. The game will tip off at 2:00 p.m. (ET) on the Big Ten Network.