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Chane Behanan dismissed from Louisville, Kevin Ware likely to redshirt

Missouri State v Louisville

of the Louisville Cardinals during the game against the Missouri State Bears at KFC YUM! Center on December 17, 2013 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Andy Lyons

Missouri State v Louisville

of the Louisville Cardinals during the game against the Missouri State Bears at KFC YUM! Center on December 17, 2013 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Andy Lyons

It started with a pair of cryptic tweets on Monday morning. Minutes later can the announcement that Rick Pitino will be addressing the media, and by then we were only waiting for the news to become official.

Chane Behanan has been kicked off of the Louisville basketball team.

“Unfortunately, [2013] is ending on a bad note for us personally,” head coach Rick Pitino said. “Chane Behanan has been dismissed by the university from our basketball team.”

Behanan has been in-and-out of trouble during his time as a Cardinal. He was suspended indefinitely earlier this season due to his off-the-court behavior.

“Away from the lines, he just did not do the right things over and over and over,” Pitino said. “The university has gone to bat for him, in giving him every opportunity to make it here. It’s come to a difficult detour in his road.”

It goes without saying that this is a massive loss for the Cardinals. “This has set our basketball team back immensely,” Pitino said. “A lot of changes have to be made and they have to be made on the fly as we just found out about this last night.” One of the biggest issues that the Louisville has had this season has been that they don’t have enough balance on the offensive end of the floor. Luke Hancock and Wayne Blackshear have been struggling shooting the ball from the perimeter, and the Cardinals have yet to establish a post presence.

Behanan was Louisville’s best low-post scorer. As good as Montrezl Harrell is, he’s not a guy that’s going to score with his back to the basket. Behanan was also one of their best rebounders at the power forward spot. This is a major blow, one that is more painful that just losing the 7.6 points and 6.3 boards he was averaging. Stephen Van Treese and Mangok Mathiang will see more minutes, as will freshman Akoy Agau.

Pitino also dropped another bombshell in this news conference, announcing that Kevin Ware was likely to redshirt this season. “I think he could be shut down, but I wouldn’t say that 100 percent,” Pitino said. “Ware is not a factor on our basketball team. We’ve been playing without him.”

Ware broke his leg in gruesome fashion in last season’s Elite 8, becoming one of the nation’s feel-good stories as he worked his way back during the offseason.

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