Mum’s the word for Louisville forward Chane Behanan this semester

There have been questions and speculation amongst Louisville fans in regards to the silence of sophomore forward Chane Behanan.

And after Louisville’s second intra-squad scrimmage, which was won 85-74 by the Red team, on Sunday head coach Rick Pitino addressed the situation.

Behanan has been given a gag order of sorts, as he has been banned from speaking to the media for the entire fall semester and will also have to sit out the Cardinals’ November 1 exhibition against Pikeville.

Why was Behanan banned from speaking and suspended from the team’s first exhibition? It looks to be a teachable moment and not much more than that.

Pitino said Sunday that Behanan was involved in some unspecified ”incidents” this summer and was warned that another would lead to him missing games.

I spoke to a source close the situation tonight who confirmed that Pitino is true to his word.

“Pitino is telling the media accurate information,” the source explained. ”Chane broke curfew a couple of times this summer. There may have been some Twitter and Facebook things, too.”

In Pitino’s post-scrimmage press conference he said that the disciplinary action wasn’t a big deal and Behanan will be fine.

“Rules are rules,” said Pitino. “If you tell your son to be home by midnight and he comes home at 2 AM what are you going to tell your son? Don’t do it next time? And what if he does it again, what are you going to tell him?”

In Sunday’s scrimmage the sophomore finished with 13 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots. Last season Behanan averaged 9.5 points and 7.5 rebounds, and he reached double figures in scoring in all five of the Cardinals’ NCAA tournament games.

While the Cardinals are a deep basketball team they can’t afford for a talented player like Behanan to have issues, so there really isn’t any harm in Pitino making sure the offseason message gets through now as opposed to allowing things to fester.

Also of note in the scrimmage was that senior point guard Peyton Siva rolled an ankle and George Mason transfer Luke Hancock scored a game-high 29 points.

Pitino didn’t sound concerned about Siva’s injury, and stated that a positive in the preseason Big East Player of the Year playing just seven minutes is that it gave Hancock more time at the point.

“We’re going to have to use him there,” Pitino said. “You can see when he came off the pick and roll the difference between him and Russ. Russ was looking to score every time, and he (Luke) was looking to throw a lob dunk and set somebody up.”

Kevin Ware also saw minutes at the point on Sunday, and the more options the Cardinals have in regards to handling the ball the better when considering just how banged up Siva was last season.

Raphielle is also the assistant editor at CollegeHoops.net and can be followed on Twitter at @raphiellej.