Usually, I group a bunch of links together from the past few days and stick them into the end of a post, or a Links post, just to make sure anyone reading Montlake Madness isn’t missing out on the best Husky hoops stuff I’m reading.
This Pac-10 preview by Daven Harmeling is worth calling out all on its own. Harmeling played four years for the Cougars, averaging a pedestrian 5.5 points and 2.1 rebounds. What I like about this piece is that he’s writing honestly and from experience (a rare combination in sportswriting — athletes generally couch their responses in generalities to avoid creating “bulletin board material,” and writers are writers, not ballers, try as we might to get inside the heads of the guys on the court).
Sure, Dawg fans are likely to bristle (as I did) at Harmeling’s description of Washington as a “chaotic team” that lost its “voice of reason” (Jon Brockman). But, you don’t have to agree with Harmeling to enjoy his writing. He is, after all, a Cougar, and we’re not supposed to agree anyway.
Clearly Harmeling isn’t very up on the freshman entering the league this season, but his impressions of current players and coaches are insightful, and he speaks more critically about former opponents than I’ve seen from most athletes. I’m always looking for insight to help inform the way I watch and follow the game, and here’s a little dose from a true insider.
Thanks for coming!
Tags: Cougs Suck, Daven Harmeling
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I think Chaotic is fine, as long as the Dawgs make the pace Chaotic and create Choas on the defensive end. I think it’s obvious that the huge unknown is how the Dawgs deal with losing Brockman. He brought so many things to the team and was a huge problem for the other team.
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I love that you tagged this Cougs Suck. Well played sir.
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Dawgs play real fast. A game going at a medium speed is chaotic for a Coug b/c of their desire to slow the game to a stand still in recent years. So, I’m with Scott…..I think that is almost a compliment coming from Harmeling.
Also Scott, I think the loss of Brockman is a bit over hyped but obviously I would prefer to have him. 1) It really looks like Quincy is ready to take on the leader role. 2) Every one of our 7 returning players who got good playing time last year (Q-Pon, IT, Venoy, Holiday, Gant, MBA, Elston) should be better. So its more of a group statistical replacement of Brockman than any ONE person. 3) Adding on to #2, for a team with only one senior we have quite a bit of experience and are really more experienced than last year.
Then we could go on to the addition of Gaddy blah blah! Sorry for the long post. I think about this stuff a lot. Bottom line: We would still be better WITH Brockman but I think we should be better than last years team still. GO DAWGS!
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Interesting analysis of the Pac-10 schools. He had good insight into a lot of the schools, but really had very little knowledge about this year’s UW team. I guess I would have expected more insight from a former rival from the other side of the state.
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wow, he really picked us sixth, when everyone else is either picking us 1 or 2? those silly cougs!
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Mikey….
I don’t think he ranked the rest of the Pac-10…..he just picked Cal to win and listed the rest in no particular order. His analysis of the Dawgs though was pretty lame.
The chaotic label is fine….if I remember correctly, they called the Conroy, Robinson, Roy team that reached the Sweet 16 the same thing. I really enjoyed that type of play…..personally.
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I literally laughed when he said Herb Sendek is the second best coach in the Pac-10.
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Harmeling is a WHINNING little B*****…the guy couldn’t even WHIFF the court last year in either UW game, so I guess he does have a good view of UW since his sorry a** was riding the pine.
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