Abdul-Rauf said the team, Ittihad, decided to continue the game after Stone was rushed to hospital Tuesday in the western city of Jiddah because "life goes on and we wanted to go out in the hopes of winning it for him."

"We were still hopeful things would turn out positive," Abdul-Rauf told The Associated Press over the telephone.

Abdul-Rauf said Ittihad's coach was talking to the team in the locker room at Jiddah's Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium during halftime of a game against Ohud in the best-of-three semifinal series, when Stone "started sliding down from bench" and soon "was on to the floor."

"At first I think people thought he was having a seizure," Abdul-Rauf, 39, said. "We put him on floor. I was rubbing his head trying to calm him down and some people were pouring water on his face. Then some five or six guys picked him up and put him in an SUV and they drove him off."

He said the team got word at the end of the game that Stone had passed away.

"Everybody took it real bad," said Abdul-Rauf, of Atlanta, Georgia.

Abdul-Rauf, who has been playing with Ittihad for five months, said he had known Stone for a couple of weeks.

Ittihad's head coach, Guillermo Vecchio, was quoted by Arab News daily that Stone was like a son to him, "a great player and a good person."

Stone, who was 26 when he passed away, died of an apparent heart attack, according to Kenny Klein, a spokesman for University of Louisville, one of Stone's former colleges. Stone had recently signed a contract with Ittihad and was playing in the team's Elite Cup semifinal Tuesday night.

Stone's agent, Hirant Manakian, said Stone was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Stone spent three seasons at University of Kentucky before transferring to Louisville, where he averaged 10.3 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.5 blocked shots during his last year in 2002-03.

He played professionally overseas and had recently completed the season with a team in Cyprus before signing a short-term contract with Ittihad Jeddah according to Manakian.

The English-language Arab News paper said Stone never regained consciousness after collapsing. It quoted Abdul-Rauf as saying that no physician was on hand at the sports complex during the game and urged Saudi sports authorities to address this and "provide professional care" at sports facilities as "the rest of the world does."

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Donna Abu-Nasr contributed to this report from Beirut, Lebanon.