Late Tuesday morning, the Syracuse basketball program announced in a very curt press release that Benny Williams has been dismissed from the team with no further explanation.

"Everyone involved with the program wishes Benny the best," the statement read.

Williams was averaging 5.4 points and 3.9 rebounds in the 18 games he appeared in.

Williams was called for a technical foul late in the first half of Saturday’s game at Wake Forest and subsequently removed from the game by Adrian Autry.

If you were watching the television broadcast of the game, you may have noticed Williams bump shoulders with Autry when passing by his coach on the way to the bench, while neither making an effort to get out of the way nor turning around to apologize to his coach after the contact.

Williams was also suspended prior to the start of the season, missing the first two games of the campaign, and also missed the game against Gonzaga in the Maui Invitational and the game against Cornell in early December. No comment was given after the Gonzaga game, although Williams’ absence was reportedly due to violation of a team rule, and after the Cornell contest, Autry said, “I just played the guys that I thought could help us win the game.”

No matter the reason, Williams is off the roster, shortening the list of options at Autry’s disposal for the last month of the season. While he was on the team, Williams was essentially half of the power forward rotation, sharing the spot with Justin Taylor. His absence will open up some minutes, as he was averaging just over 17 minutes per game on the season.

The likely beneficiaries of that newly-available playing time are Taylor, Quadir Copeland, Kyle Cuffe Jr., and Peter Carey. Taylor probably gets his leash as a starter extended a little, especially given that he has the second-highest defensive rebounding rate of the players on the team and they need all the help they can get on the glass. Yes, Taylor will need to continue shooting better, as he did in the second half against Wake Forest, to maintain those minutes. Yes, the offense should go through some tweaks to help get him open looks to get shots off.

Copeland, who is just ahead of Taylor in defensive rebounding rate, should also pick up a few more minutes due to a combination of his rebounding effort and the forwards now mostly being a three-man rotation for two spots instead of either Bell or Copeland at small forward and Taylor or Williams at power forward.

Cuffe gets a little bump due in playing time to probably a little more usage of the three-guard lineup where he plays with starters Judah Mintz and J.J. Starling. Carey may get a few more minutes of run and move Maliq Brown out of the center spot and back to forward (Mounir Hima may also be used in this way). Brown, who is playing center at an undersized 6’8”, has only been on the floor with one player taller than him on the season - Williams.

This move also adds an extra dimension to Autry in his first season as head coach: a hardliner. Autry seemed to give off a “player’s coach” vibe earlier in the season, in part due to the contrast in personality between him and Jim Boeheim.

He had also previously established relationships with players on the roster as an assistant coach or recruiter, which are different roles than as the head coach. An assistant coach often becomes a confidant for some players, working to smooth over relationships after things go sideways between the head coach and a player.

In a change from that general feeling, Autry said after Saturday night’s game that the team’s effort was unacceptable, won’t be allowed, and won’t be tolerated. With a relatively short rotation due to a couple injuries and positional replication (the centers other then Brown are centers only), Autry did not seem to have many options at his disposal.

On Tuesday morning, he clearly backed up that Saturday night was unacceptable.

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