Pruitt May Be Out for Season

Tests on Gabe Pruitt’s left knee Tuesday revealed a fracture that will sideline USC’s second-leading scorer until at least the Pacific 10 Conference tournament next month and could end his season.

The sophomore shooting guard, who was injured Monday in practice when he landed awkwardly on a layup attempt, will be re-evaluated in three weeks.

He probably would require at least a week of conditioning before returning to the court.

“We’ll have to approach it like he won’t be back and hope that he will,” Coach Tim Floyd said. “If he’s not 100% right, I won’t allow him to come back.”

Floyd said the Trojans would “change the way we play a little bit” after losing a player who averaged 17.0 points and accounted for 24.4% of the team’s scoring. Pruitt led the team with 59 three-pointers and 50 steals and had averaged 25.7 points over his last three games.

“We’ll have to get our points in different ways and we may have to play a little different than we like to play as a result of the injury,” said Floyd, whose Trojans, 15-7 overall and 6-5 in the Pacific 10 Conference, are clinging to faint hopes of an NCAA tournament berth.

Floyd would not divulge Pruitt’s replacement in the starting lineup for USC’s game Thursday at Washington, but it is expected to be freshman shooting guard Sead Odzic, who is averaging 3.1 points in 13.9 minutes. Backup point guard Dwayne Shackleford probably will also play more.

“We’re going to try to fill in the spots and just try to move on forward,” freshman point guard Ryan Francis said. “We’re just going to have to come closer as a team and use everybody as well as we can.”

Pruitt, who had fluid drained from his knee Tuesday, will travel with the team to Seattle and Pullman this week.

He said he would start working out in a pool to maintain his stamina and would wear a protective brace once he returned to the court.

“I don’t want to rush it,” said Pruitt, who had never sustained a serious basketball injury before Monday. “I just want to make sure everything’s fine and I won’t have anything in my mind so I’m not playing a little tentative.

“Just making sure that everything is 100%, I think that is the best.”

Floyd lamented the fact that Pruitt’s injury occurred at a time when he had been playing his best basketball. Pruitt scored at least 22 points in the last three games and had made tremendous strides defensively.

“I thought he had improved dramatically and really gotten to where he could defend,” Floyd said.

“I’m sick for him because this is real important to him.”

Trainer Mark Pocinich cautioned that there were no guarantees for a speedy return even if doctors determined that Pruitt was physically sound in three weeks.

“You hope after three weeks that the doctors see what they need to see healing-wise and then they say, ‘OK, now you can get back into impact activities,’ ” Pocinich said. “Then we’ve got to progress him into running, jumping and basketball stuff and then he’s got to be able to do that stuff pain-free without swelling, and that tells us that he’s ready to come back.

“It’s really tough to say after that three weeks, ‘Hey, is it going to be one week after he gets back, is it going to be two, three?’ It just all depends on what happens after that time.”