BANGOR – Police arrested a University of Maine basketball player early Sunday morning and charged him with assaulting his girlfriend.

Clinton “Huggy” Dye, 22, was charged with aggravated assault. Initial reports indicated that Dye’s girlfriend may have suffered a dislocated shoulder or broken collar bone, although police learned later that her injuries consisted of multiple bruises and contusions.

Two women told police of terrifying moments as they saw Dye pick up his 33-year-old girlfriend and throw her down, first onto a couch and then against the wall and onto the floor of their Valley View apartment.

The women said they saw Dye repeatedly strike his girlfriend and then rip off some of her clothing, before they fled the apartment and called police from a neighbor’s home.

As they were returning to the home, they could still hear yelling, screaming and crying coming from inside, according to a report.

Earlier in the night, Dye had apparently had an argument with his girlfriend at Ushuaia, a nightclub in Orono. After that they all returned to the Bangor apartment, with Dye arriving home before the three women.

The two friends stayed downstairs while the girlfriend went upstairs. According to police reports, they heard their friend come tumbling down the stairs. The girlfriend later admitted to police that Dye had pushed her down the stairs.

Dye has been a key member of the UMaine basketball team for three seasons, including the last two as a starter. The incident is likely to impact Dye’s status as a senior on the squad.

“This is a serious situation and I expect serious consequences,” Black Bears basketball coach John Giannini said Sunday night. “I learned of this just minutes ago and [UMaine athletics director] Dr. [Suzanne] Tyler and I will have a thorough discussion and decide exactly what those serious consequences will be.”

Dye’s actions at minimum constitute a violation of the UMaine student-athlete code of conduct, the guidelines of which will be the basis of any action taken by the university.

Dye, a 6-foot-2, 195-pound guard from Danville, Ill., ranked third on the team in scoring last season with 13.3 points per game. He started 24 of the 27 games in which he appeared, averaging 29.1 minutes per game, and led UMaine with 58 3-pointers.

Dye, an All-America East second-team selection as a sophomore (1999-2000) when he averaged 14.7 points per contest, has scored 1,076 career points and ranks 16th on the school’s all-time scoring list. Dye, who played at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield prior to choosing UMaine, was an America East All-Rookie pick as a freshman during 1998-99.

In August of 2000 Dye filed suit through his attorneys, Theodore S. Curtis of Orono and N. Laurence Willey Jr. of Brewer, seeking undisclosed damages from the university for injuries he said he incurred on the Orono campus.

Dye said he sustained injuries to his left knee on Sept. 2, 1998, when he stepped into a manhole cover on a campus pedestrian walkway that gave way and flipped upward. In the suit, he claimed he received injuries that “eliminated” future opportunities to play professional basketball.

While initial attempts by Curtis to negotiate with the university were unsuccessful, according to Willey, the case was ultimately settled out of court, Giannini said.