Besides the Champions Classic, Tuesday features an excellent matchup closer to home
Yes, the Champions Classic takes college basketball’s center stage on Tuesday night, but there’s another interesting game just up the road.
The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (2-1) travel to Louisville (3-0) to take on the Cardinals at 6 p.m. at the KFC Yum Center. The ACC Network has the telecast.
Western is coming off a strong showing in the Crossover Classic in South Dakota. Coach Rick Stansbury’s team defeated Northern Iowa 93-87 and Memphis 75-60 before leading No. 15 West Virginia by 10 points in the second half of the championship game, only to fall 70-64.
Charles Bassey, the Toppers’ heralded recruit who had to sit out most of last season because of a knee fracture, scored 21 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and blocked seven shots in the win over Memphis. Bassey battled foul trouble against WVU, but scored 15 points with eight rebounds against the Mountaineers’ strong front line.
WKU could be without leading scorer Taveion Hollingsworth on Tuesday. The former Paul Laurence Dunbar star is averaging 19 points per game in the early going, but hyperextended his right arm and sprained his left thumb against West Virginia. Stansbury said Monday that the senior guard is a “game-time decision.”
Louisville has opened with wins over Evansville (79-44), Seton Hall (71-70) and Prairie View A&M (86-64). Carlik Jones, the graduate transfer guard from Radford, leads Chris Mack’s team in scoring at 17 points per game.
“He’s a great guard, a fifth-year transfer guard,” Stansbury said. “There’s no substitute for experience. He might have been the best grad transfer guard in the country.”
Jae’Lyn Withers, a 6-foot-8 freshman from Charlotte, is averaging 13 points and 6.7 rebounds for the Cards. He scored 20 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the win over Prairie View A&M.
“They are a big, strong, physical team,” Stansbury said.
Still, Mack wasn’t happy with his team’s performance on Sunday.
“We had a lot of negatives,” Mack said. “We have a lot of young players; therefore, sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way. We sort of sensed that before the game, that our readiness wasn’t what it needed to be and that’s on all of us, coaches and players.”
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 10:06 AM.
