Louisville Rallying Around Kasean Pryor Following Season-Ending Injury
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville men's basketball program received some tough injury news on Monday.
The program announced that fifth-year forward Kasean Pryor, a transfer from South Florida who was one of the Cardinals' top players, would miss the rest of the season after suffering a torn left ACL in their previous game against Oklahoma.
"What we had feared about Kasean to fruition," head coach Pat Kelsey said Monday. "That's just kind of the nature of the beast, and that sports, that's life, and it changes the complexion of our team."
That last sentence by Kelsey is an understatement, as it was obvious over the first few weeks of the 2024-25 season that Pryor was going to be a major contributor for Louisville. While he was having some difficulty finding his shooting touch, Pryor still entered the game vs. the Sooners averaging 13.0 points and a team-best 6.8 rebounds per game.
It was a taste of what he had done the previous year with USF. Pryor was the Bulls' third-leading scorer last season at 13.0 points per game, while also pulling down a team-best 7.9 rebounds. He also averaged 1.8 assists, shot 44.7/35.2/81.5 for the season, and logged 12 double-doubles.
While keeping in high spirits, Kelsey said that it was "tough" for Pryor to hear the news that he would not be suiting up for the rest of the year. That being said, he and the rest of the team have already dedicated themselves to being there for him as he goes through this process.
"It's tough," Kelsey said. "Anybody in that situation, any of us that would be in that situation, obviously, it's very disappointing. We talk about the power of the unit all the time, and all of us are rallying around him to pick him up in this tough time.
"He's a high character kid with with a very, very, very bright future. He's going to make an absolute 100 percent full recovery, and be bigger, better and badder than ever. It's just dealing with this dip in the radar for him, overcoming this adversity."
Pryor might not be able to make an impact on the court for the rest of the year, but his impact on the locker room isn't going anywhere. To anyone that has watched a Louisville game so far this season, you haven't had to wait long to see Pryor's personality and leadership shine through.
Even if he has to do so from the sideline, Pryor will continue to be a positive presence on the team.
"We won't lose that," Kelsey said, "Kasean is going to continue to make an impact on this team, even though he's not on the floor. His locker room presence, his energy, his personality is infectious, and he's a terrific leader on our team. Wo we expect him to contribute in that regard moving forward. Obviously, it wasn't in the cards for him to finish the season on the floor helping us, but he'll continue to have an impact off the floor."
But of course, Louisville will certainly miss his on course presence. Especially when you couple with the fact that the Cardinals are also currently without Aboubacar Traore and Koren Johnson as well. When the Cardinals host Ole Miss on Tuesday night as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge, only eight scholarship players will be able to suit up.
But if you ask Kelsey, they're just looking at it from a "next man up" standpoint, and operating with that mentality for the foreseeable future.
"Let's use Frank (Anselem-Ibe) and Khani (Rooths) as an example, who haven't played as many minutes," he said. "Obviously, they're going to have to step up, but it's all the way down our roster. Everybody's going to have to have that next man up, step up mentality in terms of changing their role to a certain extent.
"But I believe so much in the guys in that locker room, the competitive character of the guys in that locker room. Their mindset is 'we attack this new phase of our season down a couple guys.' I know we'll respond the right way, and I'm excited about seeing us compete tomorrow."
(Photo of Kasean Pryor: Kevin Jairaj - Imagn Images)
You can follow Louisville Cardinals On SI for future coverage by liking us on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram:
Facebook - @LouisvilleOnSI
Twitter/X - @LouisvilleOnSI
Instagram - @louisvilleonsi
You can also follow Deputy Editor Matthew McGavic at @Matt_McGavic on Twitter/X