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I’ve got a previous engagement, so no game story from me tonight. I’ll be back in the morning with thoughts and observations on the game once I’ve had a chance to break it down on my DVR.
Here’s the link to Percy Allen’s recap of the worst Husky loss in about three years.
Tough night to be a Dawg fan.
Thanks for coming!
Tags: Post-game story, USC
Who: Washington Huskies (3-4, 12-6 overall) at USC Trojans (3-3, 11-7 overall)
When: Saturday, 7:30 PM
Where: Galen Center
There is only one thing you need to know about Saturday night’s game against USC: The Huskies are going to win.
Here’s why:
It was only a jumpshot.
Consider where we’d be right now if we’d won by that single point against UCLA, instead of losing by one. Isn’t it likely that you and I would be on Cloud Nine about the Huskies right now? Sure, we should’ve covered against the Bruins — beaten them by more — but we’d have escaped from Pauley with a win. Would you really be quibbling? I certainly wouldn’t.
All would have been good. We’d have been on a three-game winning streak, and the losing from only two weekends ago would’ve been a distant memory. Coach Romar would’ve led his boys into Pauley — that sixth circle of Dawggy hell — and came out with the victory.
The Huskies would be sitting at 4-3, aiming for their first SoCal sweep since 2006, and the conference championship would seem oh-so-within the team’s grasp.
Now, that didn’t happen, of course. A former walk-on guard found himself open at half court, dribbled to the top of the key, got an open look on some shoddy D, and buried it. Dawgs lose by one. But, it was right there. Just a jumpshot away.
I’m bummed about the finish Thursday. Really bummed. But, what I’m not bummed about is the Husky effort. We didn’t get blown out by 17. We even came back in the second half.
We came in and nearly dealt with our road bugaboo and earned what would’ve been an impressive victory. They came, they fought, they lost.
Sure, they lost to a team with less upside. But the point is, we were a poorly guarded jumpshot away from winning. Which means we were a poorly guarded jumpshot away from feeling completely differently about the team’s prospects.
So, yeah, I think we’re going to come into USC even hungrier, knowing we let one slip away that had nothing to do with unpreparedness to play on the road. Tough game, good effort, so-so production, rough loss.
Each loss makes the road ahead harder. And, there might come a point where talking about the conference championship is just mathematically silly. But, we’re not there — SO not there. The Pac-10, the NCAA Tournament, it’s all still there for the taking.
It’s up to you, but I say, don’t give up on these boys. I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen the rest of the way. This team is too hard to read. But, I know what’s going to happen Saturday at the Galen Center.
And when we flex that mojo and come out with a SoCal split, we’ll be looking ahead at four straight at home. Things won’t look nearly so grim.
So don’t you lose your mojo. It was only a jumpshot.
Tags: game preview
Bret Hartman / LA Times
Ugh. . .
After the game, nearly in tears, Quincy Pondexter talked about how he didn’t think there was any chance the Huskies would lose this game. Me neither, and I’m not sure where this leaves us.
Here’s some thoughts on last night’s game:
Poor Quincy. He really was struggling during his post-game radio interview to keep it together. And, rightfully so. Win this game, and the team could legitimately say they’d turned a corner. Now, though, the road woes hang over them like black cloud.
Conventional wisdom says that home court is worth about 10 points in a basketball game. To the Huskies, though, it looks like it’s worth about 30.
We forced 16 turnovers, which isn’t terrible, but the defensive intensity of last weekend just wasn’t there.
Justin Holiday wasn’t a huge factor tonight. He had two ugly turnovers. And even his defense looked only pedestrian against Nikola Dragovic, who looked good early, but then disappeared late in the game.
Bright side: Abdul Gaddy is looking better every game. I even thought his defense looked okay tonight.
What’s up with the rotation? Venoy played only 12 minutes tonight, and Matthew Bryan-Amaning only four. Sometimes our substitution patterns seem almost random.
Instead of MBA, we get Darnell Gant picking up two costly fouls late in the game, and taking an inexplicable turnaround jumper in the lane when we’re down three points with four minutes to go.
Our interior defense is horrific. We got beat three or four times with simple passes over our entire defense Thursday night.
Reeves Nelson looks a little like a poor man’s Jon Brockman — if Brockman were a whiny little snot. (Sorry, I’m still upset about the game)
Isn’t the midrange jumper something we should be able to hit more consistently than the three-point shot?
Isaiah looked good on defense tonight, but gawd, he needs to find a way to score against the zone. A simple 2-3 turns him from Mighty Mouse to Minnie Mouse.
Dammit. Here’s what I wrote in my notes with 9:53 left in the first half, and the Huskies up 24-21: Only hanging because shot is falling! Not playing great, but hitting shots.
Final thought: This one would’ve been easier to digest if we’d laid a total egg. But we didn’t. We just didn’t play enough D, and our shot stopped falling in the second half. As Romar said, the effort wasn’t bad at all. But, the result was the same.
Final thought #2: Sure, we could’ve won by 8-10 points if our shot was falling in the second half. But, we also could’ve lost by eight or 10 if our first half shooting hadn’t been so great.
It’s gonna get late early for the Dawgs if they can’t get up off the mat for a win on Saturday.
Tags: Post-game story, UCLA
The Huskies (3-4, 12-6 overall) lost to the UCLA Bruins (3-3, 8-10), 62-61, at Pauley Pavilion Thursday night.
The least you should know:
The Huskies lost a see-saw battle on a last-second jumper by Mustafa Abdul-Hamid.
The Dawgs shot 58.3% in the first half, building a 41-37 lead, but only managed 20 points on 29.6% shooting in the second.
Quincy Pondexter shot 4-4 from beyond the arc, nearing keeping the Huskies in it all by himself, finishing with 23 points and six rebounds.
Tags: Post-game story, UCLA
Who: Washington Huskies (3-3, 12-5 overall) at UCLA Bruins (2-3, 7-10 overall)
When: Thursday, 7:30 PM
Where: Pauley Pavilion
Huskies 101: What more can be said about the Huskies’ dominant weekend against Cal and Stanford?
Seeing the Dawgs play so well last week forces the question, coming into this week, of whether this team is capable of sustaining this level of play on the road. The Huskies have not won outside of Hec Ed all season, and likely won’t be able earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament without some quality road wins over the next six weeks.
Husky leader Quincy Pondexter broke out of his mini-slump by averaging 26 points and 7.5 rebounds in the Stanford and Cal games, and earning Pac-10 Player of the Week for the third time this year.
Isaiah Thomas has played within himself more recently, averaging 17.6 points and distributing an average of five assists in the last three games.
Lorenzo Romar seems to have firmed up his rotation, the biggest change being the addition of Justin Holiday to the starting lineup.
Holiday’s pedestrian statistical totals (3.8 ppg, 3.3 rpg) fail to tell the whole story of his impact on the court. Holiday suffered a concussion last weekend, but is expected to start Thursday.
Projected lineup: G – Abdul Gaddy, G – Isaiah Thomas, F – Justin Holiday, F – Quincy Pondexter, F – Tyreese Breshers
UCLA 101: The Bruins have lost three of their last four, and are in the midst of a wildly inconsistent season. No one is accusing the Bruins of being a Final Four contender this year, but at their best, as in their wins against Cal and Arizona State, they’re a dangerous team.
They’ve also had their share of headscratcher losses against teams like Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton.
Guard Malcolm Lee (13.8 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 3.6 apg) is, arguably, the most talented Bruin, and Michael Roll (13.4 ppg, 43.3% 3-pt.) is a skilled marksman.
Freshman Reeves Nelson (10.2 ppg, 5.8 rpg) has filled in nicely for the Bruins top post player, Drew Gordon, who left the team for good early this season.
Even in a down year, UCLA will be a formidable opponent for the Huskies at Pauley Pavilion, where the Huskies have only won once since 1988.
Projected lineup: G – Malcolm Lee, G – Michael Roll, F – Tyler Honeycutt, F – Nikola Dragovic, F – Reeves Nelson
The Huskies will win if: They forget that they’re not in the friendly confines of Hec Ed and pick right up where they left off this weekend.
The Dawgs will win if they continue to let defense be their guide. When the Huskies force turnovers, they win.
The Dawgs will win if they can again get out to a fast start and not look back. They have more talent than the Bruins and the first eight to ten minutes of the game will be the best chance to overwhelm UCLA and assert their dominance.
The Huskies will lose if: We see the same team we’ve seen on the road in efforts against the Arizona schools and Georgetown. There’s something about the team’s execution that’s been off on the road thus far, and it’s time to put that in the past.
A humble suggestion: Pain me as it does (since it’s taken me a bit to become a believer), I admit Scott Suggs has been more impressive than Elston Turner this season. Having a reliable outside shooter on the team adds another necessary dimension to the Husky offense. But, neither Turner or Suggs bring much besides shooting, and I’m underwhelmed with the team’s play when both players are on the floor. Great to see Suggs improve, and give Turner the chance to find his shot again, but how ’bout we only see these guys one at a time?
Predictions: The road woes end here. The team can’t afford to look past this one, but I can, and I think we’ve got a battle on tap Saturday against a tough USC team. This one’s all about the Huskies, though, as they continue to roll against UCLA, 81-64.
In the Times yesterday, Jerry Brewer had a column entitled, Terrence Jones of Portland Jefferson Would be a Gem for the Huskies, and Percy Allen wrote in his blog that Jones “dazzled” at yesterday’s King Holiday Hoopfest.
Jones was clearly the best player on the court during his 22 point, nine rebound, eight block performance in Jefferson’s 62-58 not-as-close-as-the-score-would-indicate win over Washington’s #1 ranked Federal Way.
And I would be THRILLED — dancing in my living room thrilled — if Jones chose to play at UW.
I was most impressed by Jones’ length. At one point, on a Jefferson full court press, he fully extended his arms out and looked like a stalking middle linebacker while cutting off a huge passing lane.
But here’s what the glowing reviews of his play left out. . .
While he dominated the boards, using his Inspector Gadget arms to grab any rebound in his vicinity, the biggest and most talented player on the court (by 2-3 inches) didn’t always make a beeline to the ball when a shot went up either. Maybe others saw it differently, but I didn’t get the sense that Jones at this point is much of a get-your-hands-dirty kind of player.
His effort looked good when going to hole or trying to swat a shot, but I didn’t see quite enough hustle when there wasn’t a potential highlight waiting for him.
Jones also expressed frustration with teammates’ mistakes a number of times, which is something I’m so proud to say you don’t see a lot of out of the Huskies. For Jones, it’s likely a manifestation of being so much more gifted than the players around him, but it’s an unsavory characteristic nonetheless.
This is quibbling, but a college coach will likely tell Jones to either work on his three-point shot until it becomes a strength, or stop shooting it. Jones may fancy himself a guard, but his game says “forward” to me, and his jump shot (beyond-the-arc, and in front of it) needs work.
There’s no question Jones is going to be a great college player, and likely, a terrific NBA baller one day. And, like I said, I hope the Huskies get him.
But the hopeful replacement for Quincy Pondexter (about as likable a player as there is) just didn’t manage to worm his way into my heart in a single high school game the way I thought (and hoped) he might.
I do hope for both Jones and the Huskies that Terrence decides to play at Montlake. Coach Romar is no doubt capable of molding a selfless, humble warrior out of Jones, a player who has all the tools to go as far as he wants to in the game.
In a couple of days, you’ll be able to check out the Jefferson/Federal Way game for yourself on Comcast On-Demand. (Or, at least that’s what was announced at the game.) Would love to hear your thoughts on Jones as well!
Thanks for coming!
Tags: Terrence Jones
Thanks to reader Rich for putting together these +/- figures for the Pac-10 season to date. Plus/minus measures the team’s performance only when a specific player is on the floor.
Rich has tried to put the numbers in perspective a little bit by giving a “garbage time only” number for three players who are typically on the court once the score has been decided.
Pac-10 games total point differential: +9 (meaning Huskies are nine points better than their opponents during the Pac-10 season)
Matthew Bryan-Amaning: +41
Quincy Pondexter: +39
Venoy Overton: +37
Isaiah Thomas: +37
Justin Holiday: +29
Scott Suggs: +7 (Garbage time only: -23)
Brendan Sherrer: -7
Darnell Gant: -10
Clarence Trent: -22
Elston Turner: -27 (Garbage time only: -15)
Tyreese Breshers: -31
Abdul Gaddy: -37 (Garbage time only: -10)
Tags: Plus/Minus
Links and more after an eventful few days in Husky basketball:
First: Quincy Pondexter won his third Pac-10 Player-of-the-Week award for his play against Stanford and Cal, averaging 26 points and 7.5 rebounds in the two games. Here’s the release, which shows Pondexter leading the league in award-winning weeks. Wazzu’s Klay Thompson is second.
Not surprisingly, the Huskies are still absent from both polls this week. No Pac-10 team appears in either top 25, although Arizona State did receive a few votes, and Cal received one vote in the Coaches’ Poll.
Joe Lunardi has the Huskies in the “next four out” category in his latest Bracketology column. He projects Cal and Arizona State into the tournament, both as 11 seeds.
Seth Davis at CNNSI.com actually says that the Huskies helped themselves with their non-conference schedule by not playing any “really bad teams.”
Also at CNNSI.com, Andy Glockner projects the Dawgs making the Tournament as a 10 seed, and Cal in there as a 9.
And thanks to reader Andy for pointing out that the Huskies have less losses (five) than North Carolina or UConn (six each). Sure, both national powers are struggling, but it’s another reminder that other teams with high hopes slip up sometimes too, and they haven’t necessarily doomed their seasons.
Yes, I’m excited about this team. How ’bout you, Husky fans? Let me hear it in our comments section!
Tags: Quincy is awesome
The King Holiday Hoopfest takes place all day today at Hec Ed. I’m going to take advantage of having the holiday off and go watch some top-flight high school hoops.
The matchup of most interest to Husky fans is likely to be the 6 PM game between the top team in Washington, Federal Way, and Portland’s Jefferson High School with their star Terrence Jones.
Jones is a top 25 recruit who has listed the Huskies among his top five teams for quite a while now. Jones likely won’t announce his decision until the spring, but this is your chance to see him up close.
Here’s the press release on the event, including ticket prices and the full slate of games.
Thanks for coming!
Tags: Terrence Jones
Huge win. Potentially a season-changing win for the Dawgs who know now that, at their best, they can beat anybody.
Scroll down for our game story, but here’s some more thoughts and observations on Saturday’s big win:
Not to start off on a negative, but Venoy had zero steals again against Cal… He’s only got two in his last five games, and seems generally less active on the defensive end. Not sure if this is the result of more focus on playing under control or what. But, I miss the peskiness a bit.
Also, Venoy almost got Quincy killed when he overthrew him on an alley-oop that (thankfully) turned out fine, especially since Quincy got the foul call. Quincy’s dad did not look thrilled at the play either — an interesting reminder of how much trust is put in the passer on a play like that to lead his man to the hoop safely.
It’s so easy to take Isaiah for granted — he piles up 18- and 20-point games like they’re nothing — but when he plays defense the way he did this week, there isn’t a better guard in the league.
I don’t mind 29 fouls in a game like this. The Huskies are committing themselves to a “no easy baskets” approach, which I like. They’re working hard, and if it’s going to mean more fouls, fine. I just wish we had another reliable post player so we don’t wind up with Clarence Trent, who’s just not ready yet, on the court at crunchtime of a big game.
That said, the Pac-10 refs have been atrocious so far. One example: Scott Suggs got called for an intentional foul with the team up more than 20 in the second half. Call it a flagrant if you must (which it wasn’t), but when there’s absolutely NO reason for an intentional foul, nor had the game gotten chippy, you can’t call that.
Gaddy and Overton combined Saturday for a nice point guard performance: eight points (four each), eight assists (five for Gaddy, three for Venoy), two turnovers (both by Gaddy).
Matthew Bryan-Amaning had a bit of a bounce-back game with 10 points and seven rebounds. But a lot of his production was against beanpole Max Zhang. I want to see MBA do it against a tough opponent, when the chance to get hit in the post actually exists. I’ll take what I can get from Matthew, but felt like he was taking advantage of a terrible defender more than really changing his game.
The lineup looks set for now, and Coach said he didn’t see any reason to tinker at this point: Gaddy, Isaiah, Holiday, Quincy and Tyreese start. MBA, Suggs and Venoy are the key reserves. And Darnell Gant, Elston Turner and Clarence Trent seem destined to see ten or less minutes per game for the time being unless a specific situation calls for them to see more.
Coach Romar mentioned after the game that he didn’t really think UW matched up well with Cal, and it’s true. Our starting five against their big scorers is a big minefield of defensive mismatches, but today only one of Cal’s big guns ever got going.
This could easily go the other way when we go down to Cal, but if the Huskies play with this much emphasis on defense the rest of the way, they’ll win the conference — no question.
Tags: Cal, Post-game story
