A little more than a year after the Columbine High tragedy that shook the nation, Greg Barnes, a star basketball player at Columbine, committed suicide on Thursday.

Barnes, a 17-year-old junior who was considered one of the top basketball players in the state, hanged himself in his home.

It is the second suicide since the April 20, 1999 shootings at the school in which two students killed 15 people and wounded 24 others. Carla Hochhalter, the mother of wounded student Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was left partially paralyzed, killed herself Oct. 22, 1999.

Barnes was a 6-foot-4 guard who averaged 26.2 points per contest and broke the school's scoring mark this past season with 602 points. He was named to the Denver Post and Denver Rocky Mountain News All-State teams after leading the squad to a state semifinal appearance.

"I would want them to know he was an outstanding player, but more importantly, he was a great human being," Columbine basketball coach Rudy Martin told the Rocky Mountain News. "He was just a great kid."

Barnes, an honor student, told Sports Illustrated last year that he saw teacher and coach Dave Sanders die while he was watching from a window in the science room. Barnes was also friends with one of the students who was killed, football player Matt Kechter.

"We're really praying for his family," said Matt's mother, Ann Kechter. "We know how incredibly painful this is going to be for his family and what they're going to have to go through."

Three Columbine athletic teams played postseason games Thursday after their pleas to have the contests postponed were declined. The school held classes today with extra counselors.

Barnes is survived by his parents, Mark and Judith Barnes, and a younger brother, Doug.