Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
The Louisville Cardinals are coming off of a national championship and they will have a giant target on their backs in the 2013-14 college basketball season as a result. Whether the case, a second scorer would be huge for this team in the upcoming season.
Russ Smith will likely put up big numbers once again since he did score 18.1 points per game last season. However, no one was really that big of a threat in the scoring department outside of him.
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Peyton Siva and Gorgui Dieng were next in line, averaging around 10 points per game, but both are no longer on the team.
It doesn’t matter if it is Chane Behanan, Luke Hancock or whoever, someone has to step up on the offensive side of the ball.
Being the defending national champs, Louisville will be getting every team’s best shot. Not to mention, Smith will be the main focus for opposing defenses. To lighten the load on Smith someone has to put up 10 or more points per game.
Someone putting up 13-15 points per game would be huge, but who knows if that will be the case.
There is so much talent coming back, so a number of guys could improve and provide that extra scoring that this team needs. At the very least, Louisville will have a great defense once again and Smith will do what he does best–score points…like a boss.
With that said, losing Siva and Dieng is huge on the defensive side of the ball and the team will not be the same without either. Siva was the field general as well.
The Cardinals will be a great team in the upcoming season whether if another player emerges on the offensive side of the ball or not. However, Smith will not be able to do it by himself.
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