The Cardinals Basketball team is #3 in the new AP Poll and #2 in the Coaches Poll this week. They return to the court on Tuesday night at 7pm to face the Hartford Hawks in their second game of the Hall of Fame Tip Off. The game can be seen locally on WHAS 11 or ESPN 3. This will be the second time that these teams have played each other. The Cards won the only other meeting in this series 104-69 on Nov. 17, 2007. The Hawks are 2-2 this season and are picked to finish 4th in the American East Conference. They have never beaten a team ranked in the top 25. The Cards are going for 20 straight wins.

Hartford had one of the youngest rosters in division 1 college basketball last year and that will be beneficial to them this season as they do return some guys with good experience. The best of those returning players is preseason first-team all-America East honoree Mark Nwakamma (18.8 points, 7.5 rebounds a game). He has been big for them so far this season leading every category, shooting 54 percent and is the only player averaging double figures. The Hawks are averaging 63 points this season. Their offense is based on the use of the three point shot and they ranked fifth in the nation last year in 3-point attempts/field goal attempts. 44.6 percent of their field goals were from behind the arc. They will need consistent perimeter shooting from Wes Cole (7.8 points, 1.3 rebounds a game), Evan Cooper (5.8 points, 1.5 rebounds per game), and Taylor Dyson (4.5 points, 1.3 rebounds per game) to pull off the major upset on Tuesday night. This group is hovering around 30% collectively so far this season. The Hawks Point guard Yolonzo Moore II (9.5 points, 4 rebounds, 1.8 assist a game) is fully healthy after playing through a sports hernia injury for the majority of last season. He is the guy they will look to run the offense and provide more balance. The guy holding down the paint area for this team is Yasin Kolo (8.5 points, 2.3 rebounds a game). He’s an active big man who feels comfortable playing post up basketball and will shoot it from behind the arc like the rest of this team. Coach John Gallagher said about his team: “We have nine or 10 guys who can really play right now. We’ve never had that, so to take that step everybody just has to trust each other.”

Hartford Hawks
2013-14 OVERALL RANKINGS
-POINTS PER GAME
66.3
291st
OVERALL
-REBOUNDS PER GAME
29.8
328th
OVERALL
-ASSISTS PER GAME
10.0
294th
OVERALL
-FIELD GOAL PCT
.457
153rd
OVERALL

Kenpom Ranks
Overall – #191
Defense Adjustment Efficiency
-99.5 ranks 102nd
Offensive Adjustment Efficiency
-98.2 ranks 257th

The Cardinals are 3-0 and are beating teams by an average of 31.7 points. They are back to full strength after getting Luke, Chane and Kevin back and acclimated to the team last Friday night. They will be looking to keep things rolling in the right direction and will take on the first top 25 opponent this weekend if they and North Carolina can advance in this tournament. I look for Coach Pitino to start getting his sub pattern more resolved and he said today in his press conference that he’d like a 9 to 10 man rotation. I will be watching to see if the guys can do a better job from the charity stripe. This game should provide a little bit of a challenge as our defense will be extended to cover the three point shot and every player on their team will chuck it up from deep. And they will have to do a good job covering Nwakamma. This kid is one of the best players this Louisville defense has went up against so far. This game should be another opportunity for this team to work on some things. Cards will win big.