On Monday, ESPN 680's Jason Anderson tweeted that Montrezl Harrell had informed him over the weekend that he is no longer one of the captains of the Louisville basketball team.

Montrezl Harrell informed me he is not currently a captain on the Louisville basketball team. More on ESPN 680 and http://t.co/3occ14WFhK — Jason Anderson (@J680Anderson) January 19, 2015

Apparently that is, in fact, the case.

Rick Pitino confirms @J680Anderson report that Montrezl Harrell is no longer a team captain, but calls it "absolutely no big deal." — Jeff Greer (@jeffgreer_cj) January 20, 2015

It may not be a big deal to Pitino or even the team, but the fact that this happened -- regardless of what precipitated it -- is certainly intriguing. After all, Pitino felt strongly enough about Harrell's leadership a season ago that he named the then-sophomore a tri-captain after Luke Hancock and Russ Smith had previously been named the team's lone leaders.

This is certainly the season of motivation when it comes to Louisville basketball, and it's hard to see this as anything but that. Maybe Trez was simply leading with too much intimidation (something Pitino noted earlier this season), maybe this actually happened a month ago, or maybe he'll have his captaincy reinstated by the end of the week, who knows. Pitino has always been very protective of his upperclassmen, so my guess is that we'll never have the story on exactly what sparked this.

Regardless...