The Good Guys Sports Blog

Every team has that player who fans insist has all the talent in the world, but can never quite put it together.  For the 2009-2010 UW Huskies basketball team, that player is Matthew Bryan Amaning.  An athletic big man who shows occasional elite skills, he just as often shows a surprised expression as the ball bounces off his hands out of bounds.  He’s played better the last few weeks, leading many to hope that he is about to become the dominant post player Dawg fans have hoped for.

I’m pretty skeptical. I think MBA will remain a semi-talented big man with good athleticism, bad hands and questionable basketball smarts.  But I think we are overlooking one important piece of the puzzle in our analysis:

Matthew Bryan Amaning is a pretty sweet name.

It’s deceptively simple. None of the three names are too weird, so at first glance the only thing out of the ordinary is that there are three of them, but that’s hardly uncommon.  Dig a little deeper.  He has two first names, or does he?  Is Bryan a second first name, or part of a hyphenated last name frequently missing the hyphen? Or is it a middle name he really likes?  I was always under the impression it was a double last name, but now I’m not sure.  Neither are TV announcers.  They fluctuate between calling him Amaning and Bryan-Amaning before usually settling on Matthew or MBA or nothing at all, and are undoubtedly relieved when he takes his frequent seat on the bench.  Maybe it’s a British by way of prep school thing.  And how do you pronounce Amaning? Is it AM-an-ing? or a-MAN-ing?  I’ve heard his own coach use both pronounciations in the same interview.

Wherever his meandering career takes us in the next 15 games and senior season, we will remain confused.  But we will be sure of one thing: MBA in the NBA would be a good time for all.

-Matthew

Here are Plus/Minus numbers for the Huskies this season.  From what I can tell, they’re only up-to-date for Jan. 27th, so that’s about 6 games missing.  Taken from www.basketball-statistics.com.  First column is total, 2nd is net offensive, 3rd is net defensive.

Isaiah Thomas  13.7 6.8 -6.9
Scott Suggs  9.3 5.8 -3.5
Quincy Pondexter  8.9 4.3 -4.6
Matthew Bryan-Amaning  8.6 1.3 -7.3
Venoy Overton  6.3 1.9 -4.4
Justin Holiday  2.3 3.0 0.7
Clarence Trent  -3.3 4.4 7.7
Darnell Gant  -4.8 0.2 5.0
Elston Turner  -6.8 -5.0 1.9
Abdul Gaddy  -16.2 -7.5 8.7
Tyreese Breshers  -18.1 -11.3 6.8

There is of course lots going on with these numbers, because there are always four other players on the court and they depend greatly on the opponent, but they’re interesting anyway.  If anyone can find more current numbers, that’d be great.

Matthew

There seems to be at least a little interest in this topic so I thought I’d try to explain.  Joe, Dan, and me seem to be in agreement that the Huskies very well could win the rest of their regular season games (I haven’t talked to Matthew about this but I think he probably feels the same).  We know that the Huskies have 3 more road games.  We know that they’ve only won one road game out of eight.  We know they are as inconsistent as Pac-10 refs. But I’ll explain why we think this.

When I was young I played basketball and baseball.  My dad was my coach and I loved playing these sports to say the least.  I would practice and practice, not because I was supposed to but because I wanted to.  But no matter how much I practiced dad would tell me that sports were 50% physical and 50% mental.  You could have all the physical skills in the world, but without the right mindset (the mindset that you would make a shot, throw it where you’re supposed to, and that you’re going to win) you wouldn’t be a good player.  All year the Huskies have had this mental problem in which they couldn’t play anywhere near their potential on the road.  Now, they finally won a road game and maybe that problem is gone.  Maybe not, but the Huskies are clearly a better team than their 1-7 road record and now that they’ve got the monkey off their back.  Their mindset might be in the right place now. 

So lets take a look at the next 5 games:

Feb. 18th, home against USC-  This game scares me.  I know the Huskies play like a top 15 team at home but, for whatever reason, it seems like we never match up with them.  They are pretty athletic and completely dominated us when we played them at home.  I think we win this game but not that easily. 

Feb. 20th, home against UCLA-  We should win this game for many reasons.  UCLA is not very good, it’s senior day, national TV, sold out arena, college gameday is there, and we should’ve beat UCLA on the road.  Count this one as a win.

Feb. 27th, @WSU-  It’s hard to win on your rivals home floor and this is probably our toughest road game left.  WSU has had these 2nd half collapses and it would seem like they’d play a complete game sometime but I think their young team is tired.  This game is a toss-up for me.  We match up pretty well with them but it’s their last home game, which makes for a pretty hostile environment. 

Mar. 4th, @Oregon-  Since beating the Huskies at Hec Ed. Oregon has lost 8 of it’s last 10 games.  The Ducks suck but if they’re going to be fired up and ready to win a game it’ll be this one.  Oregon fans don’t like UW (much like we don’t like them) and they will make it a tough place to play.  Even with this I think the Huskies will avenge their only home loss of the season and win this game. 

Mar. 6th, @OSU-  Oregon State is not a tough place to play.  The Beavers can take people by surprise though with their quirky schemes.  On paper we should have no trouble with Oregon State but that’s why they play the game.  OSU is bad and we should win this game but we have to be ready to go and can’t take it easy this game.

If the Huskies have really turned a corner with this road win then they could very well win the rest of their games.  Unfortunately, that’s a big if.  If the Dawgs win out they should lock down a spot in the tournament, if not they’ll have to do some work in the pac-10 tournament.  Regardless of what happens, it makes for an interesting 3 weeks.  I hope they’ve turned the corner.  As one of my favorite bands writes “Just hoping makes me better for it.”

Andrew

We won a road game!  UW beats Stanford 78-61.  I’m not going to give a recap, that might come later by someone, but I just thought this blog should express some excitement!  It’s great to get this “can’t win a road game” thought out of our heads.  If the Dawgs somehow make this a year to remember the play of the year will be Quincy diving a quarter of the way across the court, beating all pac-10 forward Landry Fields to the ball and then passing it to Darnell Gant for a game-clinching dunk.  That’s the kind of play Jon Brockman made.  That’s the kind of play you want from your captain and that play showed how much Quincy wants it.  We have a long ways to go in a short amount of time but that might be the kind of play that turns around a season.  (Knock on wood for me, thank you.)

Andrew