Horrified teammates wept as a player's leg bone snapped during one of the most closely watched U.S. college basketball games of the year. 
 
 Louisville's Chane Behanan, foreground, and Wayne Blackshear (20) react to guard Kevin Ware's injury during the first half of the Midwest Regional final against Duke in the NCAA college basketball tournament,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Trainers check on Louisville guard Kevin Ware (5) after an injury during the first half of the Midwest Regional final against Duke in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 31, 2013, in... (Associated Press) 
 
 Louisville's Wayne Blackshear (20) and Chane Behanan (21) react to Kevin Ware's injury during the first half of the Midwest Regional final in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 31,... (Associated Press) 
 
 "The bone's 6 inches (152 millimeters) out of his leg, and all he's yelling is, `Win the game, win the game,'" said Louisville coach Rick Pitino, who wiped away tears Sunday as national television quickly backed away from showing replays of Kevin Ware's nasty fall. "I've not seen that in my life." 
 
 (hash)KevinWare shot to one of the top worldwide trending topics on Twitter. Video of the injury was posted on YouTube. 
 
 And Ware's teammates went on to surge past Duke, 85-63, to win one of just four spots in the race to the national finals. 
 
 Ware's right leg bent in such an awkward, frightening angle that CBS stopped showing replays. Team officials said the leg was broken in two places. 
 
 Louisville star Russ Smith heard the break, and Chane Behanan, Ware's closest friend, couldn't believe what was happening. 
 
 "The bone was literally out. I saw white, it was literally out," said Behanan, who collapsed to his hands and knees at the sight. 
 
 The injury happened right in front of the team. Behanan looked as if he was going to be sick. 
 
 "I've never seen anything like that," Behanan said. "I don't remember the last time I cried." 
 
 Dr. Frederick Azar, a spokesman for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, said Ware "jumped pretty far horizontally and vertically, and he landed with a twist," which puts so much torsion and stress on the bones they could have just snapped. 
 
 Louisville, the top overall seed in the tournament, went more than 3 minutes without scoring after the accident but regained its composure. 
 
 "We won this for him," Pitino said. 
 
 Behanan switched into Ware's No. 5 jersey near the end of the game. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Michael Marot and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione contributed to this report. ||||| CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Rick Pitino said Louisville wouldn't have been able to move forward from Kevin Ware's leg injury had Ware not told his team 12 times that he would be fine and pushed them to beat Duke. VPC 
 
 Luke Hancock, right, comforts teammate Kevin Ware after Ware's injury Sunday. (Photo: Jamie Rhodes, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Kevin Ware had successful surgery Sunday night 
 
 Ware had his bone re-set, a rod inserted and his wound closed 
 
 Ware hopes to rejoin his team in Atlanta to support them in the Final Four 
 
 Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware underwent successful surgery Sunday night to repair the gruesome open fracture of his right tibia he suffered during the Cardinals' 85-63 win over Duke in the Midwest Regional final, and he is expected to remain in Indianapolis until at least Tuesday, Louisville announced. 
 
 Ware had the bone reset, and a rod was inserted into his leg during the operation that lasted about two hours. The wound caused by the bone puncturing through his skin in his lower leg was closed. 
 
 Louisville's late-night release said no timetable for recovery has been set, but the early prognosis from sports medicine director Fred Hina — given right after the game while Ware was in surgery — was that Ware is bound for a lengthy recovery, but the injury is not likely a career-ending one. 
 
 LOPRESTI: Injury evokes serious emotion 
 
 PHOTO: Kevin Ware's moment with trophy 
 
 REACTION: Outpouring of support for Ware 
 
 Hina was part of the team that stabilized Ware's injury on the court as he was removed on a stretcher. 
 
 "It's an injury that needs to be dealt with in a swift fashion due to the fact that it was open, and there are infection concerns, and then obviously you need to stabilize that fracture," he said. "One thing you have to establish is, is there circulation below the fracture? Did he disrupt any arteries or veins? Once we establish that, it's stabilizing the fracture as tight as we can so that it doesn't move." 
 
 Ware is hopeful he can return to Louisville after Tuesday, then join the Cardinals as they advance to the Final Four in Atlanta, his hometown. 
 
 VIDEO: HOW LOUISVILLE CAME TOGETHER AFTER INJURY 
 
 CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Kevin Ware talking was a 'calming influence' on the Louisville basketball team, said Cardinals point guard Peyton Siva. 
 
 Louisville's team physician traveled with Ware in the ambulance to the hospital after the injury, and Hina and Ware's girlfriend, who was at the game, have been in contact with Ware's mother, who lives in Atlanta. 
 
 Ware's mother planned to travel to see him soon, Hina said. 
 
 Hina said Ware's recovery time would be based on the nature of the hardware that was inserted in his leg. 
 
 "Because it was a weight-bearing bone and it was such a difficult injury, it will take a while," Hina said. "But he will play again." 
 
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 Hina likened the injury to the season-ending fracture suffered by former Louisville running back Michael Bush in the 2006 season. 
 
 Bush recovered to be chosen in the next year's NFL draft and currently plays for the Chicago Bears. 
 
 "Once I spoke to the trainer at halftime and he told me it's Michael Bush's injury," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. "He said it's going to take some time coach, but he'll be fine. Once I knew that, then I could regroup and just get them refocused. ... He's going to be fine. Now if this was a career-ending injury? (But) we all know how good Michael Bush is right now, and it's a Michael Bush injury." 
 
 Hina said he's seen similar severe fractures, but there's no getting used to seeing injuries so gruesome. 
 
 "It never gets more palatable," he said. 
 
 Bush posted on Twitter that he cried after seeing Ware's injury. 
 
 "I feel so bad," he wrote. "Flashback of myself." 
 
 MORE REACTION: Gruesome injury brings teammates to tears 
 
 GAME RECAP: Ware inspires Louisville to win, Final Four berth 
 
 Dr. Craig Roberts, chairman of Louisville's department of orthopedic surgery, was coming out of an operation when he caught the replay of Ware's injury on TV. 
 
 "It was very dramatic, very deformed," Roberts said. "I hate to use the word grisly, but it brought me back to Joe Theismann," he said, referring to the professional football player whose compound fracture in 1985 ended his career. 
 
 An open fracture could have been caused simply by the amount of force and the angle at which Ware landed after leaping to challenge a Duke shot, Roberts said. 
 
 "It looks like what we call a bending fracture — like snapping a pencil with your finger," he said. "There was a significant amount of force, and the angle looked about right." 
 
 Roberts said open fractures of this sort would be treated by intravenous antibiotics and surgery to implant a metal rod within eight hours of the injury. He added that Methodist Hospital "has a very strong group of orthopedic surgeons." 
 
 Dr. Tony Wanich, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, said Ware's injury was extremely unusual given the circumstance, and that such severe fractures are usually seen in car crashes. 
 
 In such an injury, Roberts said that in the "best-case scenario," a patient would begin to show signs of healing within 8-12 weeks. "With ... physical therapy, top-notch rehab, he may actually be doing quite well by three months or so," he said. "From there, it's a matter of muscle rehabilitation, strengthening, sport-specific rehab." 
 
 Dr. Robin West, a Pittsburgh Steelers orthopedic surgeon, said that typically, the best-case scenario to return from such a compound fracture is 6-8 months. 
 
 But she said the fact that Ware's bone broke through his skin will likely add to his recovery time. 
 
 "The blood supply gets cut off to the bone, and it's an open system," West said. "There can be a pretty significant rate of infection, and the blood supply is worse, so the healing is slower." 
 
 Wanich said it will be important to monitor Ware closely during the 24 hours after surgery because of the risk of infection and blood flow problems. Roberts said that possible complications could include slow healing of the bones or soft tissues. 
 
 "Sometimes the wound itself is so injured that over time the skin and muscle can die," he added. "The healing itself is sometimes a little delayed on account of its being an open fracture (with) high energy." 
 
 As for returning to the sport, Roberts thought Ware's prognosis was good. "There's a very high likelihood that we'll see him play again," he said. 
 
 Steven Jones, Matthew Frassica and Adam Himmelsbach write for the Louisville Courier-Journal, a Gannett partner property. 
 
 PHOTOS: THE BEST PHOTOS FROM THE ELITE 8 ||||| In many ways, it had been an exemplary few days for the NCAA and its signature basketball tournament—a weekend that put the madness back in March. 
 
 On Friday, Michigan and star guard Trey Burke completed an epic comeback over Kansas. On Saturday, Cinderella team Wichita State crashed the Final Four. 
 
 But for many people watching the Louisville-Duke game unfold, a disturbing injury to Louisville guard Kevin Ware illustrated a different sort of madness: the continued lack of compensation for the players who make the tournament so special. 
 
 "Pray for [Ware]," columnist Dave Zirin tweeted. "There is no safety-net for the injured NCAA athlete." 
 
 Injury among worst seen on TV 
 
 Ware's broken leg—"about the most gruesome injury I've seen in a basketball game," bemoaned analyst Seth Davis—came on a routine play, as he landed awkwardly after trying to block a shot by Duke's Tyler Thornton. 
 
 And evoking memories of a similar, career-ending injury to the NFL's Joe Theismann, Ware snapped his leg in two places, with his tibia bone sticking six inches out of the skin. Ware will miss at least a year, Louisville coach Rick Pitino said after the game, and it's fair to wonder if he'll ever play high-level basketball again. 
 
 The injury was so graphic that it prompted an immediate debate over propriety: Should the footage even be shown? And while websites like Deadspin and BuzzFeed posted links to the video, others (including CBS, which was televising the game) elected to halt replays. 
 
 Few protections for NCAA athletes 
 
 But the most important discussion returned to the questionable morality of college athletics: Were Ware's services being exploited by the NCAA? 
 
 Keep in mind: 
 
 Ware was playing for no pay beyond an athletic scholarship to Louisville—a scholarship that's often only renewed at a coach's discretion. 
 
 While Ware's surgery will be covered by Louisville, he has no recompense to file for worker's compensation. Under the NCAA's deliberately ambiguous terminology of "student-athletes," the organization is shielded from such claims. 
 
 While most college sports programs are money-losers, the NCAA's annual TV ad revenue from March Madness exceeds $1 billion. And Louisville is the most profitable college basketball team in the nation. 
 
 What happens next--for Ware and the NCAA 
 
 Entering Sunday, Ware was a fringe NBA prospect—ranked 76th among all college sophomores by one service—far from a lock to make that league, but likely to play professionally at some point. 
 
 Ware's injury raises serious questions about his ability to do exactly that. 
 
 Under a best-case scenario, Ware recovers after several years of rehab, but suffers some loss to future earnings. 
 
 Consider the case of Michael Bush, a former Louisville running back who suffered a similar injury in 2006. Bush was a projected top-10 pick in the 2007 NFL draft; after snapping his leg, he fell to the 100th pick and lost out on a windfall of $40 million or so. 
 
 Under a worst-case scenario, Ware deals with continued medical burdens—and as Salon's David Sirota points out, ends up getting stuck with the bill. 
 
 Sunday's episode ensures that the NCAA will face pressure from Zirin, Sirota, and other usual suspects. Taylor Branch's seminal article on "The Shame of College Sports" will be passed around again. 
 
 But it's important to remember that Ware's broken leg was unusually terrible, and unusually high-profile. The debate will fade as the next round of games resume. 
 
 Meanwhile, every season of college football or basketball sees hundreds of lesser injuries, to lesser players, on lesser stages, with no compensation for the afflicted. 
 
 Perhaps it's madness that we're not more mad about that. 
 
 Also on Forbes: 
 
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– Louisville guard Kevin Ware is recovering from what commentators say is the most horrific injury they've ever seen in a basketball game. Ware snapped his right leg in two places as he landed from a jump in the first half of the Cardinals' Midwest Regional final against Duke, leaving his broken tibia bone sticking six inches out of his skin, USA Today reports. Surgery last night was successful, but Ware is expected to be out for at least a year. Ware's teammates went on to beat Duke, 85-63. Before Ware was stretchered out of the stadium, he called his teammates over and urged them to win the game. "The bone's 6 inches out of his leg, and all he's yelling is, 'Win the game, win the game,'" Louisville coach Rick Pitino tells the AP. "I've not seen that in my life." Louisville will pay for Ware's surgery, but he was playing for no pay beyond a scholarship and NCAA regulations shield the organization from compensation claims, Forbes notes.