Category Archives: Huskies Basketball

Posts dealing with Huskies basketball

by | March 19, 2010 · 4:54 pm

What to Make of Tomorrow’s Game

Having finally got over the amazing victory yesterday, I thought we’d take a look at what tomorrow’s game holds.  I watched the New Mexico-Montana game last night and, to be honest, thought New Mexico looked awful.  While I hope that they look this bad on Saturday, I don’t think they will.  Every team has bad games and I’m choosing to believe that New Mexico had one. 

By looking at New Mexico’s lineup I think the Huskies match up pretty well size wise.  While yesterday’s game may not be an accurate description of the talent the Lobos have, it’s safe to say that they may have trouble going up against big centers.  Montana’s center, who is good but not great, had 26 points and 13 rebounds.  He looked like the best player on the court in yesterday’s game. With this knowledge the Dawgs’ have to look for MBA and Quincy to take advantage of New Mexico inside.  Offensive rebounding is another portion of the game in which the Huskies have an advantage. 

The Lobos star player, Darington Hobson (that’s a terrible name), sustained a sprained left wrist last night.  He will play but one has to think that this will affect him.  New Mexico goes as Hobson goes; he leads the team in points (16 ppg), rebounds (9.2 rpg) and assists (4.6 apg).  Roman Martinez will also be someone the Huskies have to look out for, he’s a very solid 3 point shooter.  Their point guard, Dairese Gary, has  an excellent assist/turnover ratio at 2.25.  We’ll see what Overton can do to disrupt that.  I’d imagine Holiday will start out on Hobson but he could also see time against Martinez with Pondexter guarding Hobson.  Their guards do have a height advantage on ours but that’s been the story all season.

New Mexico scores about 76 points per game, which is close to on par with the Huskies.  I expect a fairly high scoring game with the Huskies trying to push the pace as usual.  This is a pretty good matchup.

It makes me somewhat nervous that the experts are starting to pick the Huskies.  These guys love the underdog role and hopefully they keep playing with that mentality.  It’s easy to forget that just last week New Mexico was ranked number 8 in the country and has 30 wins on the year.  They are a very good team and it’ll be a tough task tomorrow.

I don’t want to make a prediction because I’m too superstitious for my own good but if you want to, do it in the comments below!  Have I mentioned how amazing yesterday was?  It was the most nervous I’ve ever been watching a game.  Joe did a great job of recapping the game, as did Montlake Madness.  Tomorrow should be fun, go Dawgs!

Andrew

2 Comments

Filed under Huskies Basketball

by | March 18, 2010 · 9:37 pm

Huskies live to fight another day, Quincy leads the way

CLIFF DESPEAUX / THE SEATTLE TIMES

With 13:58 left in the second half, Marquette held a 15 point lead. Needless to say, the game looked over. The Huskies defense was lacking, getting beat to the hole, getting beat on the boards, running off screens in odd directions leaving Marquette’s shooters wide open for three’s. Romar called a TO. Then, slowly, patiently, and with aggressive in your face no holds barred defense, the Huskies fought back. Five minutes later the Dawgs had whittled the lead down to five, thanks in large part to Elston Turner and Quincy Pondexter. Elston was lights out from long range, while Quincy went to work on the boards. Overall, the team’s energy increased ten-fold, almost as if they had Marquette right where they wanted them. A tease, just like this team has been all year. Any true Husky fan who has followed this team all year like we have knows the tremendous talent Romar has put together, but until the last few weeks, it wasn’t working together in a cohesive unit. Well, now it is, and it’s clicking right along. Isaiah has found his stroke from outside, Quincy is being Quincy, working is butt of on the boards and getting shots, MBA is aggressive offensively and has become a defensive force down low, and finally Elston Turner is maturing right before our eyes on both ends of the court. His three point shooting is dagger-in-the-heart good, while his defense has improved so much Romar keeps him in the game at the end rather than swapping him for offense/defense. All of the sudden now the Huskies have four legit offensive weapons. That is tough to guard. Marquette constantly lost track of Turner on the perimeter, same with Isaiah. MBA almost always had one-on-one on the block. When the Huskies can be this potent on offense it makes them tremendously hard to guard. The key is defensive intensity. The focus and discipline the Huskies showed in the final 13 minutes of that game today was impressive, the mark of a great, maturing team.

In the end though, it all came down to Lorenzo Romar handing the ball to his closer, the senior, Quincy Pondexter. By not calling a timeout after Isaiah’s miss, he was telling Quincy “this is your time, your moment, win it, grasp it”, and Quincy did just that. Patiently dribbling the ball up high, he spread the court, confidentially telling his fellow teammates to stay put, I got this. As the seconds tick down, Q was in complete control, slowing moving forward like a lion ready to pounce on his prey. Dribble drive left, grinding against his defender, determined to will the ball in, and he did just that, banking in a shot that literally required all of his energy to complete.

At the end of the game, Quincy leads his Huskies off the court in victory, living to fight another day, living for this time, this moment. Grasp it, Carpe Diem. Quincy Pondexter, Mr. Clutch.

Leave a comment

Filed under Huskies Basketball

Tagged as , , ,

by | March 16, 2010 · 2:52 pm

Not the Greatest Team Ever, But Still Great

In early November I was sitting in Hec Ed. with my brother, watching the Huskies warm up for their exhibition game against Central Washington.  Matthew said to me that he thought Quincy could have a Brandon Roy like senior year, I didn’t think so.  Dreams and expectations were floating around the building.  Could this team make a final-four run?  How many games would they win the pac-10 by?   They went on to win by about 30 that night.  We got to see Clarence Trent’s athleticism, Tyrese Breshers look like Jon Brockman, and Abdul Gaddy make some unbelievable no look passes.  Walking out of the building that night the expectations set on the Huskies seemed realistic. 

With sports come disappointment.  Some people would qualify the Huskies as disappointing.  The expectations started going down the toilet with a couple missed Elston Turner free throws in Lubbock, Texas.  Texas Tech and the Huskies were both undefeated and the Huskies were playing their first road game.  They were better than Tech but they forgot to play defense that night and lost a thriller in overtime.

Then came a game in Anaheim against a good Georgetown team.  It was a chance for the Dawgs to get a quality win.  In the first half a win looked possible then came a terrible 5 minute stretch in the second half.  The type of stretch that we’ve become to familiar with this season; we can’t make a basket to save our lives and the other team can’t miss.  The Huskies fought hard to come back from a 20 point deficit but lost. 

The Huskies played their way through the rest of the non-conference season, looking very good at times but looking completely average more often.  They picked up a solid win against Texas A&M but that game was overshadowed by the worst injury I’ve ever seen in person.  Heading into pac-10 play no one knew what to expect from the Dawgs, they hadn’t beaten anyone of  note but they hadn’t looked awful.   Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Huskies Basketball

Tagged as , ,

by | March 15, 2010 · 12:22 pm

What We Don’t Know

Saturday, Lisa and I were driving to the movie theater after watching the end of the Pac-10 championship game, and I had the radio on the KJR post-game show.  They were discussing the Huskies’ win, of course, and seeding in particular.  One caller made the case that he wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Huskies wound up in the 5-7 seed range when the brackets were announced.  Dick Fain, the host, disagreed politely but strongly, arguing that before the game the Dawgs were looking at a 13 seed and one game wasn’t nearly enough to jump them that high.  I got worked up pretty quickly over this argument, probably to Lisa’s suprise, because I don’t get too worked up. 

Fain ended up being right, as the Huskies are an 11 seed, and I didn’t really expect them to be a 5 or 6 seed.  What bothered me (and bothered is a strong word in this case) is that the argument was based on a presumption taken as fact.  No one knew if the Huskies were actually looking at a 12 or 13 seed before the win over Cal.  The only people that make that decision are on the selection committee, and with all the surprising results, I doubt they had UW set as anything at that point.  It was Joe Lunardi and the other analysts who had the Huskies as a 13 seed, and while they’re usually pretty accurate, and were in this case, it’s extremely possible that the selection committee could have viewed the Pac-10 very differently and had UW at 6 and ASU in the tournament.  We just didn’t know.

I had a similar reaction during the media’s battle over who had the proper calculations on the Mariners’ payroll this offseason.  After most of the initial moves, Geoff Baker and most of the local Mariner blogs calculated payroll down to the hundred thousands and debated, at times in fairly heated tones, who was right and what was off.  And while this was interesting and helpful in a lot of ways, I kept thinking, “You can’t take this strong of a stance when you don’t even know what the Mariners are going to spend on payroll this year!”  They could have decided to spend $175 mil. on payroll and we might have never known.  They would have just kept adding non-roster relievers and 1B/DH guys until they had the biggest spring training roster in history.  (One disclaimer: the actual writers on these posts were good about saying, “Based on recent salary and assuming it stays at that number, here’s what they have left.” It was mostly in the comments where the vitriol started to flow.)

I only bring these two instances up as a plea that we would all remember that we don’t know everything.  Often we don’t know much about a specific situation at all.  We can make a great argument based on statistical analysis or the two games I watched this weekend, and we might be right.  It’s just as possible, and usually more so, that we’re completely wrong.  Seattle Sports Insider has a nice post about this as it relates to spring training stats.  We can look at stats from the past few years and make guesses where a player should be, but sometimes a player develops in a way that can’t be forecasted.  Then it’s up to the coaches and management to decide if that player is ready, rather than writers who have not seen that player play for 5 months, if ever.  Coaches and management people are smart.  Really smart.  Even the less smart ones, of whom we’ve seen plenty in Seattle, know more about their sport than basically any of us ever will.

Most writers and other media sources are pretty good about recognizing this, especially the local ones.  The Mariners blogosphere certainly leans toward statistical analysis, some sites more heavily than others, but they all recognize that stats don’t cover everything.  I can think of several instances of reading through USS Mariner comments last year, however, and someone will say something like, “We need more hitting.”  No one disagreed with that, much less Dave Cameron and his fellow USSM writers.  But immediately another commentor would shoot back, “Actually, we don’t need more hitting, we just need better players overall. A run saved on defense is just as good as a run earned on offense.”  This became a kind of rallying cry, and in general is totally accurate, but I always wanted to ask that commentor if they’ve ever scored any runs while playing defense. 

I’ll end my rant now, with just a request.  Keep an open mind, and don’t debate like what you believe is absolute truth.  Maybe it is, but there’s a lot to be learned anyway, and it’s only a game.  I’d love to see this site become one where sports are discussed intelligently and enjoyably, because just about everyone has something worth saying.  Unless you’re saying something bad about Ichiro.  Then you can just stop talking, because Ichiro is awesome.

-Matthew

2 Comments

Filed under Huskies Basketball, Mariners

by | March 13, 2010 · 5:23 pm

CHAMPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Recap later from one of us (maybe even from all of us) but for now, WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GO DAWGS!!!!

Andrew!!!!

WOOF WOOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leave a comment

Filed under Huskies Basketball

by | March 12, 2010 · 11:55 pm

UW defeats Stanford, instant reaction

I want YOU to win the Pac-10 Tourney

First of all, the posterizing, straddle the fence dunk by MBA had me on the floor. What a savage jam.

Secondly, if the Huskies even have a modicum of offensive touch in the first ten minutes of that game, it’s a twenty point game right off the bat. Stanford hung around no thanks to themselves. Stanford’s defense was porous at best. The Huskies were solidly in brick city, an offensive fog. What saved them was there tenacious defense. The pressure they put on Stanford was like a leaky faucet, at some point the nagging dripping makes you insane, and Stanford finally lost their collective minds with about ten minutes to go in the second half. Then a playground style dunk-fest ensued, followed by silly bench hi-jinx. Good times for sure.

Thirdly, if the Huskies want to beat Cal, they must be more efficient on offense. Missing point blank layups will not cut it. The Huskies defense is there, Cal cannot touch them in that department. Offensively? Cal is very balanced, inside and outside they can kill you. That said, there is a vast athletic difference between UCLA and Washington. Cal won’t simply be able to spot up and shoot. Overton and Thomas will be all over Randle, Holiday on Christopher, and MBA’s defense has improved leaps and bounds over the past few weeks. I expect a very close game, right down to the wire, with the Dawgs winning of course, I am a homer, what do you expect?

M. B. A.

Fourthly, the tourney question. Joe Lunardi, as of right now, has the Huskies in the tourney. What is unknown is whether they make it if they lose to Cal. That answer depends on what other bubble teams do, like Minnesota and Mississippi State. If those teams somehow win their respective conference tournaments, it puts pressure on Washington to win to get that auto-bid. If those other bubble teams lose, I really like the Huskies chances in the event of a loss. Losing to Cal on a neutral court is not a bad loss, and I believe the Huskies have done enough over the past few weeks, i.e. winning on the road, to make it in. It will be close for sure, but I think at the end of the day, despite what the pundits tell us, the tournament committee will put two Pac-10 teams in, with Arizona State on the outside looking in (no tears there…).

Fifthly, the Oregon Ducks football program is an embarrassment to humanity, and I could not be more pleased. Good times.

–Joe

Leave a comment

Filed under Huskies Basketball

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | March 12, 2010 · 1:02 pm

UW vs. OSU Thoughts the Morning After

Tough but good win for the Huskies.  With ASU’s loss, I’d say UW is probably in the tournament, as long as Cal wins the Pac-10 tourney and not too many crazy things happen elsewhere.  A win tonight should seal the deal.

  • So much good entertainment in the game last night.  Andrew already wrote about Unbreakable.  The Husky cheerleaders were on fire.  I’ve never seen cheerleaders so excited about a game.  Had me wondering if they’re big basketball fans or just really pumped up to do their job.  And then… the missed dunk.  Missed dunks by the other team, especially on breakaways, might be my favorite part of a basketball game, and that was a great one.  Visually appealing, total momentum changer avoided.  That might have been the biggest moment of the game. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Huskies Basketball

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | March 9, 2010 · 11:39 pm

Beating a team 3 times in a row

With the Huskies facing Oregon State for the third time on Thursday the saying “It’s hard to beat a team 3 times in a season” is sure to come up.  I thought we’d take a look at that saying from a number of different aspects to test the validity of it. 

The first aspect we’ll take a look at is the physicality and in-game coaching.  When playing a team twice in a season you can learn their tendencies, this enables coaches to expose match-ups that they’ve found.  Using the Huskies-Beavers example, the Huskies will look to take advantage of Isaiah Thomas’ quickness cutting through the Beaver zone.  Romar and his players have seen that their team is quicker than their opponent and will try to speed up the game because of this.  Unfortunately, they knew this before the very first time they played.  The Huskies may have figured out what works with defensive matchups against OSU over the last 2 games.  The Beavers, on the other hand, may have learned a little bit more.  Half way through the 2nd half last week it seemed as if Roeland-Schaftenaar figured out that he was quicker than the UW big men.  I expect Craig Robinson to try to take advantage of this earlier in the game.  Speaking in general, this aspect seems to favor the team who has lost twice just slightly.  It’s always easier to figure out what you did wrong and what you need to do better after you lose than after you win.  I don’t think this provides a big advantage to OSU but I do think them playing the Huskies twice helps them more than it helps UW in this aspect.

Another view to take into account is the psychological aspect.  If a team beats someone twice that team is likely to have a good amount of confidence playing the team the third time.  The thought of, “We beat this team twice, we can obviously do it again” is one that brings confidence to a team.  With that confidence could come overlooking a team.  With a potential semifinal showdown with ASU looming, the Huskies could overlook the Beavers.  The Dawgs know they are superior but if they don’t show up and play to their potential then they could lose quite easily.  There are two different angles the losing team can take.  Playing a team who has beat you twice can inspire an attitude of “Here we go again.”  This is what Coach Robinson will try to stay away from.  The angle he will try to inspire is a feeling of being overlooked.  If he can convince his team that they have something to prove then he’ll do his job.  I’m sure the Beavers will say that they are ready to prove that they aren’t the same team that lost to U-Dub twice already, but are they past that mental block?  I think it’s very difficult for players to get past that which is why I would give the Huskies a big edge in this department.  Plain and simple, you want your team to have confidence in who they’re playing.  The Huskies will have that and it has yet to be seen if the Beavers will. 

For the final view lets look at the mathematical aspect.  What is the probability of a team winning 3 games in a row.  Lets drop the Huskies-Beavers example for now and pick two teams that are evenly matched (we’ll call them team A and team B).  If the two teams are evenly matched than it becomes the exact same as flipping a coin 3 times.  Like a coin flip, the third game is completely independent of the first two games (this is strictly from a math viewpoint).  The math is pretty simple on this. If team A has a 50% chance of winning each of the three games the equation would be .5^3 which equals 12.5 % probablility of winning all 3 games.  Say the Huskies have a 75% chance of beating the Beavers each time they play, the probability of beating them all three times would be 42.19% (.75^3).  Of course, this doesn’t mean that the Huskies chances of winning this game are 42.19%.  After beating the Beavers twice already the probability of winning this game is the same it was last week, 75% (the 75% is just a guess by the way, that seems about right to me).  But this is part of where the beating a 3 times in a season argument comes from.  The probability is against a team winning 3 in a row unless they have a substantial edge on their opponent.  This doesn’t take into account the matchups teams have against each other, which is obviously a big part of basketball.  But the mathematical aspect of this makes it easier to see why even the Royals don’t get swept in every 3 game series they play.  Although a team may be significantly worse than the team their playing, the probability will soon catch up to the superior team and they will lose.  This is when upsets happen.  So, should we be concerned about the mathematical probability of the Beavers beating us on Thursday?  It definitely has a level of intrigue but it won’t matter if the Huskies play to their full potential and the Beavers play to their full potential.  It’s important to remember that this game is its own separate trial, its own separate coin flip if you will.  Except this coin is weighted towards the Huskies.

I see where people are coming from when they say beating a team 3 times in one season is difficult.  It makes sense to some degree, especially from a mathematical standpoint but I don’t think that view takes everything into account.  The psychology in sports is very important and it’s favoring the Huskies at this point.  This 3 game saying may be part true but it’s definitely part myth.  I sure hope it’s all myth come 8:30 Thursday night.

Andrew

1 Comment

Filed under Huskies Basketball

Tagged as , ,