Marcus Dove, Oklahoma State's defensive stopper, has suffered a fractured hip that will sideline the sophomore forward up to six weeks.

Dove suffered the injury on the final play of the first half of Oklahoma State's 89-73 win over No. 23 Tennessee on Thursday night in Oklahoma City. With time running out, the Vols threw a long pass. Replays showed that UT forward Andre Patterson stuck out his hip for positioning while Dove was airborne. Dove crashed to the floor and landed on his left hip.

"It's a big setback," Oklahoma State coach designate Sean Sutton told The Oklahoman. "We've lost the anchor of our defense. He's been so valuable. He's really neutralized some of our opponent's best offensive threats. He's proved he's one of the best defenders in college basketball."

Dove held Chris Lofton, Tennessee's leading scorer, to two points in the first half before suffering the injury.

Coming off their biggest win of the season, the Cowboys received the bad news late Thursday night after X-rays in Stillwater. Dove underwent additional tests Friday, staying on campus during the holidays while many teammates went home for Christmas.

"We'll let him rest four to five weeks and let it calm down," Oklahoma State trainer Murphy Grant said. "He's able to walk. It's (a hairline fracture in) the socket. It's a serious injury, but Marcus being a well-conditioned athlete, it doesn't require surgery. Rest is his best friend. He'll be on crutches but can still lift with his upper body."

Roderick Flemings, a 6-foot-7 freshman who produced mixed results in the second half of Thursday's win, will replace Dove in the starting lineup.

"Marcus is our best defensive player, so I try to follow after him," Flemings said. "I need to step up. When we lost Marcus in the second half I felt I needed to go in and play defense like him. It's taken awhile, but I'm starting to pick things up."

Checking Mississippi State: The NCAA has made an initial inquiry into the recruiting practices at Mississippi State, according to documents obtained by The Clarion-Ledger.

The NCAA enforcement staff asked Mississippi State for paperwork detailing several recruiting trips, a memo said. It is inquiring into one incident rather than conducting a program-wide investigation, Mississippi State athletic director Larry Templeton said, but he declined to elaborate on the specific incident.

Collegiate athletics' governing body made its initial inquiry into the incident by telephone, according to a Nov. 15 memo from Mississippi State coordinator of compliance Bracky Brett in response to the enforcement staff.

Accompanying the memo was a packet that included expense reports, travel reimbursement forms and daily records of contacts and evaluations on recruiting trips made by Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury and assistants Robert Kirby and Phil Cunningham. The 20 pages of documents list trips made from Sept. 9, 2004 to Nov. 28, 2004.

It is not clear what the NCAA's focus is. Documents only show a request for information, not a specific line of questions or targets.

This appears to be the first time the NCAA has officially inquired into the recruiting practices of the basketball team under Stansbury, who is in his eighth season as head coach and was an assistant for eight years prior to that. It is not, however, the first time the NCAA enforcement staff has inquired about a program at which Stansbury worked.

From 1985-90, he was an assistant coach at Austin Peay, which faced an official inquiry regarding allegations of major infractions. When NCAA officials chose not to pursue it as a "major" case, it was dropped to "secondary" status in 1991 and did not go before the Committee on Infractions.

Mississippi State is on probation until 2007 because of violations in the football program under former coach Jackie Sherrill. That means, should the basketball team face sanctions it would be subject to additional, stiffer penalties because the school would be considered a repeat offender.

No penalties imposed on the basketball team would affect the football program, Brett said.

The list of players visited or contacted includes Mississippi State freshmen Vernon Goodridge and Bernard Rimmer; Oklahoma State freshman Kenneth Cooper; Arkansas freshman Cyrus McGowan; and Monta Ellis, a rookie on Golden State Warriors of the NBA.

Five high school juniors, including highly touted Thaddeus Young of Memphis' Mitchell High, received evaluations from Kirby during the prescribed periods, according to the documents.