Pitino Says Stephan Van Treese Is Louisville's Starting Center

The Louisville basketball team had been practicing for three days without a Rick Pitino bombshell, a fact which was bound to change sooner rather than later.

The explosive was dropped Tuesday morning when Pitino told Jody Demling of "The Early Birds" that senior Stephan Van Treese will be Louisville's starting center this season. This bucked the common thought all offseason that Chane Behanan and Montrezl Harrell would be the duo making up U of L's starting frontcourt.

"Van Treese will start at the five," Pitino said. "You could go with Chane and Montrezl, but I think right now I'd go with Van Treese to start and have Chane and Montrezl finish the game. Van Treese just makes everyone around him better."

Keep in mind, of course, that this pretty much means nothing. Pitino could have said SVT was the likely starter at the point and we'd all be like, "oh man that's awesome...let's wait and see what happens in five weeks," and that would be it.

Speaking of which, I'm all for SVT starting at the point. Defending national champs.