Louisville Basketball: Onuaku, Harrell both make significant contributions in loss

Two former Louisville basketball players made significant contributions in the Rockets’ loss to the Spurs on Friday night.

The Houston Rockets have been on fire throughout the NBA preseason thanks to their starters, but that doesn’t mean that two former Louisville basketball players haven’t seen any playing time. Actually, both former Cardinals, Montrezl Harrell and Chinanu Onuaku made key contributions despite the Rockets losing to the Spurs on Friday night.

Both guys are doing everything they can to make the Rockets’ roster this season and begin earning playing time with the big league club. Harrell bounced between the NBA and the D-League last season, therefore he is hoping that he can just stay a Rocket all season long.

	1	2	3	4	T
Rockets	14	24	33	28	99
Spurs	21	29	36	28	114

Onuaku, on the other hand, could be seeing some time in the D-League this year, as the Rockets are looking to develop him into one of their power-forwards of the future.

All that aside, both guys played pretty well in their minutes on Friday evening. The Rockets’ typical starters had the evening off, therefor Onuaku and Harrell saw more playing time than normal.

Here are both of their stat lines for the evening:

Montrezl Harrell: 6 points, 1 block, 8 rebounds, 17 minutes

Chinanu Onuaku: 6 points, 1 block, 5 rebounds, 11 minutes

This was a very good outing for both guys this evening. The Rockets want to see that both Harrell and Onuaku are willing to be physical and go after the basketball. Harrell has the tendency to be overly-physical, however he should be able to get a hold of that this season.