They were breathing easier in Austin on Thursday after learning the injury star point guard T.J. Ford suffered in a pickup basketball turned out to be nothing worse than a neck stinger.

Ford was hurt Wednesday night playing in a gym on the University of Texas campus. He spent four hours being treated by university medical staff and emergency room doctors at St. David's Hospital. He was taken out of the hospital out of sight of reporters, leading to speculation that his injury was serious.

An MRI taken Thursday was negative, a member of the Longhorns' coaching staff told ESPN.com. Ford will be monitored the next few days. His family has said he would be "OK."

"I want to say thank you to all the staff at Gregory Gym and St. David's Hospital for their help [Wednesday]," Ford said in a statement Thursday. "I took a spill in a pick-up game, and it created a bit of a scare. Just to be safe, they took me to the hospital to check me out and let me go last night.

"I'm going home [Thursday] to see my family for Easter weekend, and I'll be back in Austin on Monday."

Ford, a sophomore All-America, is considering leaving Texas to enter the NBA draft. He led the Longhorns to their first Final Four appearance in 56 years and won the John R. Wooden Award and the Naismith Award, both of which recognize college basketball's player of the year.

On Wednesday, Longhorns team spokesman Scott McConnell refused to answer questions, citing federal privacy laws, but did say Ford might have been involved in a collision with another player.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, passed in 1996, went into full effect Monday. Under the act, which was signed by President Clinton, institutions could lose federal funding for disclosing an athlete's medical information. An athlete can either talk about an injury to himself or sign a waiver allowing a school to release information.

Although McConnell would not say Thursday if the injury was career-threatening, Ford's father, Leo Ford, told The Dallas Morning News that Ford was "OK" but that he couldn't say more. There were no coaches or trainers on the scene when Ford was injured.

Seth Galton, a Texas sophomore watching the game, said Ford was dribbling up the court when he was slapped on the back of his neck by an unidentified player and fell to the court.

Galton described the contact as "very minor."

"He was just looking at the sky, no hands or feet moving," Galton said in Wednesday's online edition of the Austin American-Statesman. Galton said Ford was playing with several other Texas basketball players, as well as some football players.

Before Ford's freshman season at Texas began in the fall of 2001, he was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the openings of the vertebra the spinal cord runs through. After consulting with doctors, Ford decided against surgery to fix the problem, and later tests showed the condition had improved.

Ford led the Longhorns in five statistical categories this season -- including points (15-per-game average) and assists (7.7). His 527 career assists ranks second on Texas' all-time career list.

Information from The Associated Press and ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz was used in this report.