Louisville guard Kevin Ware suffered one of the worst injuries in sports history when he broke his right leg in the NCAA Elite 8 game against Duke.

Reports have indicated Ware successfully underwent surgery and that his bone was reset and a rod was inserted in his tibia.

"Basically the bone popped out of his skin. It will take a year for him to come back. Same injury was Michael Bush," Head coach Rick Pitino said.

Ware who averages 4.6 points for Louisville ran from the edge of the foul line circle and contested Duke's Tyler Thornton's shot in the first half. The sophomore guard landed all his weight on his right leg.

He laid on his back with the lower leg dangling, broken at the middle of the shin and screaming in pain.

Ware's teammates fell to the floor and some began crying.

"When he landed, I heard it," Russ Smith said. "Then I saw what happened come out. And I just fell."

Pitino, who was also photographed wiping tears from his face said a broken bone punctured the skin. "I went over and was going to help him up, and then all of a sudden I saw what it was," Pitino said. "And I literally almost threw up. And then I just wanted to get a towel to get it over that."

The game resumed minutes later, after Ware was put on a stretcher and taken in an ambulance to Methodist Hospital, The New York Times reported.

But both teams and the crowd were still shaken up.

"He was laying down, crying and saying: 'Win it for me, y'all. I'm good. I'm going to get surgery and be back at it like I never left,' " Forward Chane Behanan said.

Louisville's equipment manager Vinny Tatum wanted to get Ware's presence back on the basketball court.

"If we don't get him home to Atlanta [near where he attended high school, and the site of the Final Four], it wasn't worth playing this season," Tatum said.

The Cardinal's lead in the second half over Duke soon jumped to 16 points and Tatum sent a manager to the locker room to get Ware's jersey out of a duffle bag and bring it to the team's bench. In the last minute of the game, the jersey was given to Behanan who called Ware his "blood brother."

Behanan took off his own jersey and wore Ware's, as the final seconds counted down. "We did this for Kevin," Behanan said. "I just wanted him to be there." The Cardinals beat Duke in a 85-63 victory.

The Courier Journal reported that Ware will remain in Indianapolis until at least Thursday, depending on how well he recovers.