The Wollongong Hawks have been dealt a heavy blow with centre Larry Davidson suffering a potentially long-term knee injury.

Davidson, who has overcome previous knee injuries in his 10-year NBL career, will visit a specialist in Sydney on Tuesday to ascertain the extent of the injury.

The 31-year-old ‘‘popped’’ his left knee during a weights session last Friday and did not play in Sunday’s 106-99 overtime win over Eastern Kentucky University at the Snakepit.

He underwent an MRI on Saturday and is hoping for the best.

‘‘The scans showed there was torn cartilage, but it’ll be up to what the surgeon thinks,’’ Davidson said on Monday.

‘‘If they just have to go in and take out the bit that got torn off and clean it up a bit, that shouldn’t be too much recovery time. But they might have to do something more, which would mean a longer recovery period.’’

Wollongong coach Gordie McLeod is braced for bad news.

‘‘I think it’s reasonably serious, but it’s no use trying to guess what it is,’’ McLeod said.

‘‘It’s better just to wait and see the specialist. He’ll tell us what the process will be and then we’ll deal with that.’’

Davidson’s injury occurred as he did leg squats.

‘‘I just went down and heard a massive pop,’’ the 209cm centre said.

‘‘It started locking up on me when I was walking around, so I knew something wasn’t right.’’

Davidson was his usual vocal self during Sunday’s win over EKU, encouraging and applauding his teammates from the bench.

He is crossing his fingers he will be available for the Hawks’ opening game of the 2014-15 season on October 10 against Townsville.

‘‘Hopefully it’s something I can get out of the way now and be good for when the season starts,’’ he said.

‘‘It seems like the older I get, injuries bother me more. If I got injured when I was younger I always thought there was plenty of time to make up for it. Now when I get injured I wonder how much longer have I got, because I don’t have time to be messing around with this crap.’’

Davidson has been with Wollongong since the 2007-08 season.

Last month he signed a new one-year contract with the club.

‘‘It’s really disappointing because he was really training the house down,’’ McLeod said.

‘‘He was in really good shape. But [Davidson’s past knee problems are] also the reason why we recruited someone like Adam Ballinger.

‘‘We’ll wait and see what the specialist says needs to be done, and Larry will go onto his program and we have to get the rest of the group onto their program.’’