Heartbreak city was also seat-break city. The Dawgs, yet again, came out slow in the first half and managed a mere 25 points for the second straight game. This time, no amount of raucous and support from the fans could rally the Huskies for more late-game heroics. Trust me, the crowd was in the game, myself very much included as evidence by the seats my friend and I shattered from jumping around so much. Darnell Gant had an opportunity to tie the game and send it to overtime in the final seconds, but like the other 8 shots he took that night, it rimmed out and the Huskies were sent to the locker room with their tails between their legs.
I completely agree with the play call Romar drew up. Ross was going to be over defended and as a senior, Gant should be given the chance for the big play. Abdul Gaddy bobbled the ball before delivering a poor pass to Gant, which appeared to rush his shot and cause the miss. After such a great game against WSU, it was surprising to see Gant go right back to the atrocious shooting he has had on display for over half the season now.
Huge set of games this week against Cal and Stanford. The Huskies only get one shot at each this season and, thankfully, we get to play both at the comfy confines of Hec-Ed. Cal and Stanford currently sit a half game up on UW tied for first, while UW has sole possession of third. To say these games are critical is an understatement. Losing either makes the chase for the Pac-12 title tough and places it in the hands of whoever wins said games. If the Huskies can win both and jump at least a half game up on both schools, they will take not only the lead, but also control the tie breaker for seeding in the Pac-12 tournament.
Neither of these games will be easy, especially with C.J. Wilcox out for the week. While, Terrence Ross‘ performance on Sunday was spectacular, it is going to take a major team effort to pull off these wins. The Dawgs are working with what is essentially a 6-man rotation supplemented by 3 or 4 small minute players. The Huskies need everyone on the court to find productivity offensively, no matter what defense is thrown at them. Fully expect Stanford to run a zone for a majority of the game and Cal to likely start in a man-to-man with zone coming at different times to rattle our guys.
Cal comes into the game 15-4 on the season, 5-1 in conference. Picked as a preseason favorite to win the conference title, Cal has been playing fairly solid basketball. Like the rest of the Pac-12, Cal failed to capitalize on its games against top tier opponents. In their last game, Cal crushed Utah by nearly 40 points. Speaking of Utah, Josh Watkins has been kicked off the Utes squad, adding to the list of Pac-12 players no longer with their respective programs.
It was the game that many of us have been waiting for all season. The game in which Romar finally got his team motivated to perform. The game where Terrence Ross would finally show his NBA lottery-self. And the game where the Huskies finally responded after taking an early gut punch.
After the first half, down 31-25 shooting 29% from the field, it was looking all too familiar. Poor effort, bad shots, and a propensity to turn the ball over had most Husky fans, including myself, eager to change the channel. The loss of C.J. Wilcox to a “stress induced hip injury” (still waiting to hear more on this) before the tip seemed to doom the game before it even began.
As the second began, it looked like more of the same. Down near 10, the Dawgs were launching three after three and nothing seemed to want to fall. Then it all changed.
It was as if Romar reached his breaking point and the same time as all of us. His frustration over his own team boiled over as a poor call by an official made him blow his lid like I’ve never seen. Mortal Kombat began as he and his blazer squared off in a epic match that is destined to become a YouTube sensation. After his blazer submitted, the refs call a technical and Romar was greeted by roars from the Dawg Pack.
It was as if he was speaking (or raging) for all of us. WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH! Remember the first time you saw your parents get mad? Like REALLY mad? That was this moment for this young Husky team. It was their “Oh shit!” moment. Cue the 28-5 Husky run (or something close to that) and the Husky season was still alive and balance was returned to the Force.
While Romar’s finest moment of the season paramount for the game, it takes a player to listen and respond for these moments to occur. Terrence Ross responded. In his finest moment as a Husky, he was completely En Fuego as he drained three after three and brought the whole house down when he caught Gaddy’s lob pass for a dunk and one.
That killer instinct that I’ve been waiting for from him not only showed up, if burst out of him. Now let’s hope that he’s found his confidence and he can continue it for the rest of the season.
It hasn’t been a pretty year for either team so far. Both the Huskies and the Cougars are suffering for postpartum depression after their stars from last season have left and they are each struggling to find their new identities. This is a huge game for both teams as each needs to prove that they can have some sort of consistency other than consistently inconsistent. The Huskies can’t afford to drop a conference home win at this juncture, especially to a poor Cougar team, if they want to keep their conference title hopes off of life support.
The Cougs are 1-3 in the Pac-12 and 9-7 overall this year. Their loss to Oregon was quite bad while the overtime loss to the pre-season #12 team Utah was a crushing blow.
The problem with Cougs has been their defense during conference play. They are last in the conference in opponents FG% with 51.9% as well as second to last in points allowed per game at 75.2. They miss Casto down low as a very good shot blocker and defender and it’s really showing.
Ken Bone‘s 2011/12 squad is led by Brock Motum who is leading their team in points (15.3) and rebounds (6.4). While he’s the Coug that we all love to tease, he’s a very effective player who plays extremely hard. He’s a poor man’s Jon Brockman. He will be a tough match up for our forwards as at 6-10 he is too quick for Aziz to handle.
Next up is the three-headed guard monster that is Faisal Aden, DaVonte Lacy, and Reggie Moore. Shockingly, Aden does not lead this team in three point attemps as the freshman Lacy has shot 23 more this season. Still, Aden leads this trio in points (12.8) while the enigma that is Moore leads the team in assists (5.4). Moore is shooting less than 40% this season and hasn’t blossomed into the star that he seemed destined for during his freshman year.
Charlie Enquist, Marcus Capers, and Abe Lodwick are the other forward options with Enquist starting opposite of Motum and Capers being their starting small forward option. They aren’t the deepest team down low so getting this team running is always a great strategy.
Projected Starters:
Cougars
G – DaVonte Lacy – 6’3
G – Reggie Moore – 6’1
G/F – Marcus Capers – 6’4
F – Charlie Enquist – 6’10
F – Brock Motum – 6’10
Washington
G – Abdul Gaddy – 6’3
G – Tony Wroten – 6’5
G – Terrence Ross – 6’5
F – Desmond Simmons – 6’7
C – Aziz N’diaye – 7’0
Keys to the Game:
Off-ball Movement – The Huskies need to get better at guarding off of the ball on defense and moving away from the ball on offense. This young squad gets caught “watching” far too often and it leads to easy baskets that are far too easy.
Post Defense – Defending Motum will be huge in this game. The Huskies are going to have to be ready with the help defense and not be afraid to foul him hard. The Huskies give up way too many points in the paint and Aziz is just too slow to be the solution. Gant, Simmons, everyone needs to be quick to help down there.
Pass the ball – I know it sounds crazy, but passing the ball helps you score points. Throw it around the horn and find the best shot possible. Don’t let it get stagnate or else the clogged toilet offense appears.
Prediction:
This year’s version of the Apple Cup is not like it was with Lowe, Weaver, Brockman, Pondexter, and the rest. These two squads are under performing but that doesn’t mean that earning a win is any less important.
It’s the Cougs. The effing Cougs. Let’s smash ‘em. I’d like the Huskies to show some emotion that’s on par with this rivalry. I don’t want to seem them give an inch. Let’s embarrass this Cougar team and leave them at the bottom of the Pac-12 standings, where they belong.
With that said, predicting how this Husky team will perform is harder to do than get a Cougar to admit they got rejected from UW first. I’m eerily confident that the added pressure of the rivalry game mixed with the home atmosphere will help the Huskies perform like they did in New York.
Barring Tony Wroten not being able to play, or is ineffective, due to his tail bone bruise on Tuesday, I see the Huskies pulling out a decisive victory.
Many of you might be wondering how this game was so close after going into half with a 13 point lead. One would imagine UW would build on that and crush SU into the dirt. We certainly had the opportunity to do so, but we decided we didn’t like free points and missed 22 free throws. Let me reiterate. Twenty-Two. All of a sudden this 8 point win turns into a 20 or 30 point win if we put up a respectable percentage. C.J. Wilcox took his streak of free throws made to 30 and then proceeded to miss 2 more over the course of the night. Tony Wroten went 12 of 18 from the line, better than his season average, but still 3 fewer than I consider acceptable. Aziz N’Diaye was a miserable 4 of 9 from the line. Our team pretty much takes this attitude about free throws. Where you hear cash or money, replace it with points or free throws.
Seattle U also applied a press the entire game (take note on how it’s done, Romar) that frustrated our team to the point of ridiculousness. The half court press is exceedingly easy to beat if you just run a freaking screen for one player then back to the inbounder who dribbles up the court and passes across to their center court option. I commend Cameron Dollar for his effort, but this was another foul fest featuring 5 SU players fouling out of the game. I thought for sure we would see only 4 players on the court once again.
First things first. Two “big” pieces of news in the Pac-12. ASU’s leading scorer, Keala King, was dismissed this week following a suspension before the LA trip (leaving the Sun Devils with 6 scholarship players for the trip as two other players were suspended as well) due to team conduct violations. Big loss for the Sun Devils as King averaged nearly 14 points per game.
The second big piece of news is standout freshman tight end, Austin Seferian-Jenkins, will official join the basketball squad today, but will likely not see play time for a few weeks at minimum. At 6-6, ASJ is not a tall player, but he weighs in at a very muscular 260lb that makes him a beast to deal with inside. ASJ averaged over 20 points and 8 rebounds per game for Gig Harbor High School last year. ASJ is the fourth player in recent history to play both basketball and football for the Dawgs.
UW arrives back home after another dismal road trip. Getting beat by 20 by Colorado is just plain ugly and atrocious. The players showed zero heart and drive. Beating Utah by 4 is pathetic. The Huskies should have won by 30 or 40. Utah is a terrible team, but like I said in my preview it wouldn’t matter and it didn’t. The Huskies have the most talent in the Pac-12, yet they lack the mentality and attitude to put it into action.
As reported by Percy Allen on his blog, Austin Seferian-Jenkins will be officially joining the Husky Basketball team this week. The stud freshman tight end was a very good basketball player in high school and has always said that he wants to play both football and basketball. Now he gets his chance.
The 6-6, 258 pound forward can hopefully bring some toughness and a fresh attitude to a team that seems flat on the court. Will he play right away? Definitely not. I wouldn’t expect him to play AT ALL this week and only in blow outs the rest of the month. Remember, he’s still a freshman and he doesn’t know any of the plays yet [insert lack of plays joke here]. He’ll probably be a practice warrior and if he really impresses, he might find himself in some games in the upcoming months.
Someone tell Zach Banner that you CAN play football and basketball at UW!
Utah is bad. They are 332nd out of 342 teams in points per game at 57. They are 335th in rebounding with just under 30 a game. They are 294th in assists with 11. Finally, they are 262nd in field goal percentage with a 41% average. Does any of this matter? Not when it comes to the Huskies. Two days after getting demolished by what should have been an inferior Colorado team, the Dawgs face off against a Utes team that looked poised to pull off a second straight upset after beating WSU in overtime, 62-60. Should the Huskies win this game? Absolutely. Will they? I have no flipping clue…When this team steps out of Hec-Ed its as if the Monstars from Space Jam step in and suck up their abilities, returning their powers when they come home.
Tony Wroten had a fairly stellar night against Colorado (minus the turnovers and some defensive rotations). 21 points, 7 steals (I’m pretty sure that is one of the top UW numbers in a while), 6 rebounds, and 3 assists. Terrence Ross was decent with 13 points and 10 rebounds, but the Dawgs need more out of him. Wilcox had a terrible shooting night, but I don’t buy his altitude story.
The only two players with double digit scoring for Utah are two of the four players who returned to the Utes squad after a tumultuous off-season. The Utes lost the other two due to injuries for a few weeks, though David Foster, the 7-3 255lb senior, remains out after having foot surgery in early November. For only returning 4 players, I am amazed their roster features 17 players. the Utes run a 7 or 8 man rotation, normally.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before; a favored and more talented Husky team goes on the road and shows up with a lack of energy and walk out with a blowout loss in their pocket and talks of “next time”. Oh, you’re familiar with it? Well then I won’t bother repeating it.
Basically, it was a game of shooting percentages. The Dawgs shot 37.5% from the field and 20% from the free throws. Conversely, the Buffaloes shot 49% from the field and an above normal 57% from three. The difference is that Colorado played standard defense and UW played none. It might have been the worst overall defensive performance of the year. The Huskies looked completely lost at times on the defensive end with players not knowing who they are guarding, who they are supposed to be rotating to, or even if they are supposed to be played man or zone.
While I’m not close to being any sort of basketball expert, it appears as if their is little-to-no game plan coming in and that each teammate had just met each other a few minutes before the tip off. Chemistry, continuity, rhythm, whatever you want to call it, it’s not there when this team leaves the walls of Hec Ed.
With 16 games left now (15 in conference and 1 vs. SU) UW needs to go 12-4 the rest of the way to reach 20 wins which is normally the absolute minimum if you want an at-large bid to the Big Dance in March. Unfortunately, without a marquee non-conference win UW will need more like 22 wins this season.
On the other hand, it seems as if no team wants to win the conference this year. Cal, Arizona, and Stanford each lost on the road as well yesterday so winning the Pac 12 conference title is still possible, albeit unlikely with a future road win seemingly unattainable.
Also, the Huskies could always win the Pac-12 tournament for the third straight year and burst some better team’s bubble. The Huskies are bad but luckily the conference is worse.
Positives:
Tony Wroten – He’s the only player who shot over 40% on the day (9-16) with a game high 21 points as well as 6 rebounds, 3 assits, 5 turnovers, and an amazing 7 steals. He was abusing the other guards one-on-one but he still gets lazy and forgets to rotate or get back on D quick enough. Still, he’s our best defensive player, other than Aziz, on the team.
Rebounding – It wasn’t a bad night for rebounding, especially offensive boards, as they had 20 on offense and 38 overall. However, the team shooting 37.5% created a lot of extra opportunities. Ross led the team with 10 and Wroten was second with 6.
Negatives:
Defense – I went over it above. It’s just an embarrassing effort.
Abdul Gaddy- He played a team high of 33 minutes and finished with 4 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and no turnovers. How is that even possible? Was he trying to do nothing? He only took 5 shots, too. He wasn’t the offensive catalyst that he is supposed to be and his defense is below average. I think we need to start changing our expectations for him.
Darnell Gant – In a game in which he was desperately needed, he went 0-5 from the field, had 4 rebounds, 2 points, and 2 turnovers in 18 minutes. He doesn’t seem to know his role on this team and it leaves him in no man’s land most of the time. Similar to Holiday last year, he needs to focus entirely on defense and rebounding.
Martin Breunig – I almost feel bad for him. He plays with more energy than anyone else on the team but it’s never doing the right thing. He makes bad fouls, passes, shots, everything. It’s tough to watch.
Coaching – Just in general. Not getting your players ready on the road is on the coaching staff. It seems like a pick up game out there. Aziz only played 14 minutes, which is shocking to me, and Breunig was in for FAR too long after it was clear that he was struggling. If a game plan is being produced, it is not being taken onto the court. Romar and his coaching staff need to look in the mirror and makes some changes. Fast.
Summary:
There obviously are more negatives than the one’s I have listed so feel free to pile yours on in the comments. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a long season.
I can handle losing, don’t get me wrong. I’m a Husky fan in my twenties, I’m used to it. What I can’t handle is watching a terrible product. It’s not entertaining to watch these games and it is becoming a chore at times. Husky basketball is up-tempo and high octane with emotion and energy pouring out of the players. I don’t know what I’ve been watching when the team leaves Hec Ed.
Here’s an idea: if you’re Romar, tell them before the game that the player who he thinks puts out the worst effort on the court gets benched for rest of the month. Heck, why not tell them that he will get cut off the team. It seems that this team has a lack of motivation so let’s light a fire under them.
While a trip to the Dance isn’t out of the question yet, it sure doesn’t seem likely. A big change needs to happen and happen fast. Hope isn’t gone yet, but it’s fading quickly. Bow Down.
Colorado enters this game 9-4 on the season, 1-0 in Pac-12 play, most recently coming off a win against fellow newcomer Utah, whom the Buffaloes absolutely crushed 73-33. While I understand Utah is not even close to having the talent necessary to compete in Pac-12 yet, Colorado did not exactly come in with the highest hopes either after losing Alex Burk to the draft. That being said, Colorado has looked pretty decent in non-conference play with their biggest win a two pointer over Georgia, the same squad UW played last year in the NCAA tournament.
The Buffalo offense has been stable thus far with a low score of 54 and a high of 92. Most scores have been right around their season average of 71 points per game. Colorado receives its scoring from a variety of players with five putting up 9 or more per game and four of those in double digits. The Buffaloes also posses a very strong rebounder who has allowed them to remain one of the top in conference in terms of boards per outing. Much like the Huskies, Colorado does not do well at the free throw line.
Andre Roberson has been explosive for Colorado this season. Averaging 12 points and 12 rebounds per game, Roberson leads the team in boards and is second in points behind Carlon Brown who is scoring almost 13 per game (more on him later). Roberson is a tough, quick “guard” who has been near impossible to contain. At 6-7, most guards cannot match-up well with him, but at 195lb our forwards can do a little more muscling around. Roberson has been held to single digit rebounding only twice this season, while also having four games of 15 or more rebounds. The most recent was a season (and I believe career) high of 17 against Utah.
What makes Roberson so tough to stop is not only his own personal skills, but the rather large line-up Colorado is able to put on the floor. Against Utah, Colorado started players at 6-3, 6-5, 6-5, 6-7, 6-9. With the first four listed as guards. This team actually sizes up quite well with the Huskies who have tended to have a size advantage in the backcourt this season. Expect Darnell Gant and Desmond Simmons to draw shut down duty on Roberson. I suspect Simmons will be more successful in this endeavor as he is an avid rebounder like Roberson.
Heartbreak city was also seat-break city. The Dawgs, yet again, came out slow in the first half and managed a mere 25 points for the second straight game. This time, no amount of raucous and support from the fans could rally the Huskies for more late-game heroics. Trust me, the crowd was in the game, myself very much included as evidence by the seats my friend and I shattered from jumping around so much. Darnell Gant had an opportunity to tie the game and send it to overtime in the final seconds, but like the other 8 shots he took that night, it rimmed out and the Huskies were sent to the locker room with their tails between their legs.
It hasn’t been a pretty year for either team so far. Both the Huskies and the Cougars are suffering for postpartum depression after their stars from last season have left and they are each struggling to find their new identities. This is a huge game for both teams as each needs to prove that they can have some sort of consistency other than consistently inconsistent. The Huskies can’t afford to drop a conference home win at this juncture, especially to a poor Cougar team, if they want to keep their conference title hopes off of life support.
