CUTOTD: Peyton Siva Conquers China

Peyton Siva (@206PS3 to me and you) has been traveling with some UK players and other assorted Christians on a basketball tour of China, playing international games that I imagine are pretty intense.  If you just look at stats, he's had a bit of a rough trip, but in what can only be an encouraging sign, he posted this today:

206PS3 Game winning layup 15pts 14reb 4ast 1to

Just in case you were wondering whether that was legit, Kenny Klein came along this afternoon and expanded on that with a tweet of his own:

KKcards  Peyton Siva had 15 pts, 14 reb and 4 asst & scored the game-winner to lead his Reach USA team to 70-69 win in final game of their China tour

The old saying that the most popular guy in town is the back-up quarterback could easily be applied to the 2009-10 men's basketball team, as Peyton Siva's legend continued to grow the more he sat behind Sosa.  People even blamed Siva's lack of playing time on not getting Teague! 

Fairly or unfairly, Siva comes into next season with a huge amount of hype.  The Pitino era has not really had a true point guard.  From Reece Gaines to Cisco to DP to T-Will to Sosa, the offense has not ever really successfully been run through a quick, slash and kick, pass-first guy in the 1 position.  Siva showed flashes of brilliance getting into the lane and finding guys last year, and hopefully with more time on the court, he'll thrive and get our offense back to....well, whenever we really had a good offense.  I don't think 2005 is walking past Patrick O'Sheas and Bearnos, across the bridge and onto the pedestrian pavilion to walk into the new arena, but if Siva can create, we could be pretty good next year.

And scoring the game winning basket in a foreign land in the last game of a tough tour is something worth tweeting about.