Men’s Basketball Cardinals play themselves, once more,

Red vs. White part 3

On Saturday the Cards were back at the Yum! Center for the third and last time before they host Pikeville on Thursday.

This time the veterans got a chance to take on the young guys as Peyton Siva, Russ Smith, Gogrui Dieng, Luke Hancock and Stephan Van Treese teamed up for the winning side. They moved the basketball well on offense and limited the turnovers to just 11.

Siva did a great job of distributing the ball, with eight assists, and scored 16 including two threes. It was great to see Siva take five shots from deep and balance his inside and outside attack.

Hancock led all scorers for the second strait game with 18 and picked up a game high six steals. Wayne Blackshear also had 18 points and Dieng pitched in six steals as well.

Luke Hancock (11) should be a key contributor on both ends of the floor for the Cards this season.   Kevin Ware (5).

Dieng really did it all, blocking shots and recording a double-double with 17 points and 14 boards. He was extremely active, but all that activity saw him hit the deck at least a dozen times. It is great for the fans to have the opportunity to watch these scrimmages, but it is also scary and frustrating to see the guys hitting the floor in meaningless games.

Chane Behanan also had another double-double, teaming up with Blackshear, and was the key to his teams offense. At times the ball came to him and the offensive movement stopped, but as the game progressed he got better and better at looking for teammates and picked up five assists. With all of the speed and athleticism on this team it will be important for guys like Behanan to find open teammates quickly off of rebounds and in the half court.

Rick Pitino commented on Tim Henderson’s improvement during the game and Hendo showed off some of that improvement with 13 points and four assists, handling the ball quite a bit in the half court offense.

Tim Henderson has had the chance to show fans his big time improvement during the red/white scrimmages.

With Peyton, Russ and Luke all teaming up together it left Henderson and Kevin Ware with a huge opportunity to run the offense. Ware struggled more in that role than he had in the previous two scrimmages, but also hit some jump shots and found some open teammates.

Both teams shot over 40% from three-point range and both were above 70% from the line. Of course there is room for improvement, but those kinds of numbers are a welcomed sight for this squad before the season even starts.