Kasean Pryor leaves Louisville basketball Battle 4 Atlantis game vs Oklahoma with injury

Posted by Admin November 30, 2024 Basketball

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Louisville basketball fifth-year forward Kasean Pryor left the Cardinals’ 69-64 loss to Oklahoma on Friday night in the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis championship game after suffering a lower-left-leg injury less than a minute into the second half.

On the defensive end of the court, Pryor was clipped by one of his teammates, senior point guard Chucky Hepburn, who fell to the ground while trying to guard a driving Jeremiah Fears. Pryor went down, too, and pounded the court in pain.

With the assistance of a couple of U of L staff members, the 6-foot-10, 225-pound Chicago native limped back to the team’s locker room at Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas with 19:02 to play in regulation. Sometime around the seven-minute mark, his father pushed him in a wheelchair back out to the end of the bench, radio play-by-play announcer Jody Demling noted on the Cardinal Sports Network broadcast.

First-year Louisville coach Pat Kelsey did not have an update on the specifics or the severity of Pryor’s injury during his postgame news conference, saying: “The game just ended, and I go right to the media. I don’t have any word on that yet.”

Before going down, Pryor tallied six points on 2-for-9 shooting (1 for 5 from 3-point range), two rebounds, four assists and a steal in 13 minutes against the Sooners. Through seven appearances (three starts) this season, the South Florida transfer was third on the team in scoring with 12 points on 36.8% shooting (5 for 33 from 3) and second in rebounding with 6.1 across 24.7 minutes per contest.

As of Friday night, Pryor ranked among the top 200 Division I players on KenPom.com in defensive rebound percentage (22.3%, 155th), block percentage (5.9%, 168th) and steal percentage (3.8, 164th). He was also averaging 6.6 fouls drawn per 40 minutes, which had him at 87th in the country.

“That’s how sports go,” Kelsey said. “Our guys didn’t blink an eye; they had great resiliency and resolve. Our rotation got a little bit shorter, but the guys who played played their hearts out and put us in a position to win the game.”

The Cards fell to 5-2 with the loss, which snapped their first four-game winning streak since Nov. 15-27, 2021.

Demling said on the radio broadcast that U of L was scheduled to head home from the Bahamas on Friday night. After three games in as many days, any time off will feel like an eternity; it has two marquee matchups on tap this week at the KFC Yum! Center.

Up first: a 9 p.m. tipoff Tuesday against No. 24 Ole Miss in the SEC/ACC Challenge. Then, conference plays begins with a 6 p.m. tipoff against No. 10 Duke on Dec. 8.

“Recovery is the first priority; recovery is the second priority; recovery is the third priority,” Kelsey said.

As of Friday, the Cards had gone five consecutive games without senior forward Aboubacar Traore and junior guard Koren Johnson. The former is expected to miss multiple weeks due to a broken left arm; while the latter has been day to day with an undisclosed shoulder injury.

If they and Pryor are held out of the game against Ole Miss, Kelsey will have only eight scholarship players at his disposal.

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.