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DeMarcus Cousins, Willie Cauley-Stein Shine In Kentucky Alumni Game

By Ti Windisch

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Basketball-starved Sacramento Kings fans had at least one game they could watch before the NBA season kicks off later this October, as Willie Cauley-Stein and DeMarcus Cousins took a trip to Lexington to suit up for the Kentucky Wildcats on Sunday.

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I haven’t been able to find a complete box score of the mostly for fun game anywhere, but Kyle Tucker of the Courier Journal had Boogie at 33 points, 18 rebounds and six assists. So a pretty typical Cousins performance, in other words.

Boogie also tried his hand at shooting from distance this game and made five three-pointers in the first half. Could Cousins actually be adding a serious three-point element to his game? Games like this–and the Team USA Scrimmage, which saw Boogie take (and miss) six three-pointers–are perfect for Boogie to get some practice shooting like that.

Nobody wants to see actually strategic basketball and Cousins taking a lot of contact down low in exhibition games and scrimmages–he doesn’t need to grind and get fatigued for a pointless game, and it’s not nearly as exciting as watching Boogie pull up from nearly half-court and actually make the shot, like he did in Lexington.

But these situations do give a unique, somewhat-real game situation for Cousins to get some practice shooting from distance. I’m not expecting Boogie to be the next Kyle Korver or Stephen Curry, but it couldn’t hurt for his game to have some variety.

Besides, if his shot is better from three-point territory then it stands to reason he might improve on his mid-range and free-throw numbers too. Which seems like a small thing, but having a complete offensive game will only make Cousins that much more dangerous–a scary thought indeed for the other 29 NBA teams.

Willie Cauley-Stein may not have as much impact as Boogie did, but he still pitched in four points and nine rebounds according to Kings.com. He also recorded a great block on Golden State’s Harrison Barnes, but sadly the only evidence I have of that is this tweet–I haven’t seen a video, yet. EDIT: Thanks, Kings Reddit! Here’s the video of Cauley-Stein stuffing HB:

https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/643199014075150341

Barnes found himself embarrassed by both Kings who took part in this game, as the day prior Boogie snapped a picture of him for his Instagram and implied he was jealous of the Kentucky swagger present in Lexington.

Vlade Divac and Vivek Ranadivé made an appearance at the game to cheer on their employees, and also to take a fun post-game picture with Boogie. Everybody who talks to Vlade always seems very happy–I like that about him.

https://twitter.com/SacramentoKings/status/643211485385113606

These two Kings will take another trip to Lexington along with the rest of the team in mid-October for their preseason contest against Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans. Rajon Rondo, the other former Wildcat on the Kings, did not play in this game but should appear in that one.

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