The Cardinal Basketball team takes the floor for game number two on this young season Tuesday night. They will play another team from the Colonial Athletic Association in Hofstra. This game will be the first in the 2013 Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame Tipoff. This feeder tourney will end in a game with North Carolina in a few weeks. The Cardinals hold a 1-0 record against The Pride with Louisville winning the only game played against this team back on November 27, 1977 76-66. The Cards were picked to finish first in the AAC and Hofstra is picked to finish last in the CAA.

Hofstra is in a complete rebuild mode after they hired new head coach Joe Mihalich, who spent the past 15 years as the head coach at Niagara. Hofstra fired coach Mo Cassara on March 22 after a 7-25 season marred by the arrests of four players on charges related to several on-campus burglaries. They are getting a good one in Mihalich. His Niagara team went 19-14 and won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Association regular-season championship. He led the Purple Eagles to two NCAA tournaments and three NITs, and he had a winning record in 12 of his 15 seasons. He will try to recreate that success at Hofstra a program winning a total of just seven conference games over two years.
You can expect the game on Tuesday to be an up and down contest as Mihalich is a coach that likes to play an up tempo style of basketball. His Niagara teams played about 69 possessions a game. Coach Mihalich on his style of play: “I always like to try to play fast,” he said. “It is a fun way to play. A fun style to watch. A fun style to coach.” The Pride will rely on two graduate transfers Zeke Upshaw (14.5 points a game) from Illinois State and Dion Nesmith (12 points a game) from Monmouth to lead in the backcourt, while hoping that their big rebounders Stephen Nwaukoni (7 points, 7 rebounds a game) and Moussa Kone (12 points, 11 rebounds a game) can hold things down in the front-court. Helping to run the offense and setting everyone up will be true freshman guard Chris Jenkins (10.5 points a game) and Jamall Robinson (11.5 points, 4 rebounds a game).

Hofstra
2013-14 OVERALL RANKINGS
-POINTS PER GAME
82.0
90th
OVERALL
-REBOUNDS PER GAME
41.0
105th
OVERALL
-ASSISTS PER GAME
13.0
145th
OVERALL
-FIELD GOAL PCT
.471
109th
OVERALL

Kenpom Ranks
Overall – #303
Defense Adjustment Efficiency
-105.9 ranks 293rd
Offensive Adjustment Efficiency
-94.8 ranks 296th

The storyline Tuesday night will likely be the return of Chane Behanan to the Louisville bench. It’s up in the air on whether or not he will play significant minutes but just him being back with the team will be a welcomed site. Although both have been fully cleared medically Luke Hancock might only see limited time while Kevin Ware will again be held out of this game. Coach Pitino said in his Press conference Tuesday that Kevin is still limping some. Says that he won’t play again until that stops. I will be watching to see if the Cards can get off to a better start on Tuesday night and if they can shoot the ball better. They were settling for jump shots too often in the game Saturday and need to look to running their offense and taking advantage of their size and athleticism over the lesser opponent. This Hofstra team has some guys that rebound well and will challenge Wayne, Van Treese, and Mango. I don’t expect this one to be that much of a contest but will be another good game for the Cards to fine tune some things and to get the new guys more acclimated. Cards will cruise in this one. The only question will be by how much and how well.