CHANE BEHANAN Wearing mate’s jersey.
INDIANAPOLIS — Sometimes, there is unexpected March Sadness, and you either deal with it, or you go home. You either honor the memory of your fallen teammate and brother, or you go home. You either rise up for him, and for yourselves, or you go home.
With 6:33 left in the first half last night, a hush fell over Lucas Oil Stadium when Louisville’s Kevin Ware, trying to block a successful 3-pointer by Duke’s Tyler Thornton, landed on a right leg that shattered horrifically, the bone visible, the scene no less gruesome than Joe Theismann’s leg snapping against the Giants.
The Louisville players were in shock and distraught at the sight of their teammate prone and in distress on the sidelines by their bench. Russ Smith began crying, Chane Behanan collapsed, others on the bench vomited. Cardinals coach Rick Pitino looked as if he had just seen a ghost. Trauma transcending drama.
“I literally almost threw up,” Pitino said while wiping away tears. “Nothing like I’ve ever witnessed before in my life or a basketball game.”
Ware, a sophomore guard out of The Bronx, received immediate medical attention. Head trainer Fred Hina placed a white towel over the protruding bone and comforted and calmed Ware along with strength coach Ray Ganong.
“That’s a gruesome injury regardless of whether you’ve seen it before or not,” Hina said.
Too many had seen it.
“It was 6 feet from all of our team, so everyone saw it, including the first several rows of the fans,” Hina said. “God bless ’em.”
The crowd began to chant, “Kev-in, Kev-in, Kev-in.” Coach Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke players applauded for Ware when they lifted him onto a stretcher and again when they wheeled him out, and the Louisville team physician accompanied Ware on the ambulance to IU Health Methodist Hospital.
The scoreboard read: Louisville 21, Duke 20.
The Louisville Cardinals had a choice: Answer a desperate last plea, repeated over and over by their fallen teammate and brother — “JUST GO WIN THIS GAME, DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME I’M FINE, JUST GO WIN THIS GAME” — or go home.
“While he was on the court, one of the things that he said was, ‘Make sure we win this game, make sure we win this game,’ as he hit the floor,” assistant coach Wyking Jones was saying on the court after Louisville 85, Duke 63. Finally, four, and Wichita State next.
When it ended, Behanan bounced around on the court wearing his dear friend’s No. 5 backup jersey, then stood on a makeshift stage and held it up and everyone chanted “Kev-in, Kev-in, Kev-in.” In the locker room, Louisville players passed the jersey around and took turns wearing it.
“Very bittersweet,” Jones said. “That was very tragic, very sad, but the team rallied after that. We’re going to finish the season off, and work our butts off to make sure that his pain and his suffering right now won’t be in vain.”
The inspiration drawn from Ware lifted the Cardinals to another level, and not even the legendary Coach K could stop the assault.
In those incomprehensible moments when worlds were turned upside down, Pitino comforted his team.
“He told the guys that he broke a bone, he’s going to be fine,” Wyking Jones said.
Ware attended high school in Atlanta.
“Coach said, ‘Let’s make sure that we get back to Atlanta for Kevin,’ ” Jones said.
Louisville led 35-32 at intermission and in the locker room, Pitino said: “Don’t lose this game for Kevin Ware.”
No way they would. Once Duke tied it at 42-42, it was as if the Louisville players imagined Kevin Ware limping onto the court a la Willis Reed.
Smith (23 points), converted a three-point play, Gorgui Dieng (10 second-half rebounds) controlled the glass, and Duke sharpshooter Seth Curry (12 points, all in the second half), was never a threat, and soon it was 59-44, and the roar from the Louisville crowd was deafening.
Ware’s girlfriend was inside Lucas Oil Stadium, and arrangements were made for his mother to fly in from Atlanta.
“I didn’t ever think in a million years I would see something like that, and that happen especially to a guy like Kevin Ware,” Smith said. “I was completely devastated.”
Inside the Louisville locker room, Hina, who worked 15 years for the Mets, was saying: “He’s in surgery right now.”
The surgery was deemed successful. The school is hopeful that Ware will join the team at the Final Four.
The prognosis? “It will take a while,” Hina said, “but he will play again.”
In the meantime, you bet Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals will keep playing for him.