by: John Chase

Sorry for a lack of game review following the humiliating and embarrassing loss to SDST, but I just couldn’t bring myself to relieve that experience. Arguably one of, if not thee, worst loss in the last 10 years and possibly in program history.

The only players I thought played a truly complete and solid game were Desmond Simmons and Darnell Gant. Simmons is a workhorse who’s attitude the entire team should emulate. Simmons had 11 boards, 7 offensive, and scored 8 points. Gant put up 10 rebounds, 5 offensive, and dropped 15. Outside of them, it was a lot of bad basketball and underachieving play.

On to Cal State.

Cal State is 3-6 on the year coming off two straight wins against Pepperdine and Pacifica (who the beat by 41). In each of their wins they have scored at least 73 points, with two games in the 90′s. Their losses have featured scores of 67 or less with a low of 49. On the year the Matadors are averaging just under 70 points and 37 boards per game. The are shooting 37% from the field as well.

The Matadors receive solid contributions from a number of players and are led in scoring by Stephan Hicks, a 6-5 190lb guard, who is averaging over 17 points per game and a team high 8.7 rebounds per game. He is a do-it-all, hard working player that is an extreme threat in all aspects of the game. Hicks is a fantastic free throw shooting who drains nearly 90% of his attempts from the line. What I wouldn’t do to have him coach Tony Wroten….

Five other players average over 8 points per game, with three of those players scoring double digit averages. Michael Lizarraga is third in scoring with 10 points per night and second in rebounding with 7 boards on average. Lizarraga stands at 6-7 240lb and is a very strong inside threat. Hopefully Aziz N’Diaye will be returning tomorrow as the game against SDST showed a glaring weakness in post defense without him on the court. Lizarraga is 0-3 from the FT line and 0-1 from outside. He does most of his work next to the rim and can be contained by keeping his touches outside the paint. Lizarraga has played in only one game this season so while his stats seem impressive, its hard to judge his abilities from a single outing.

Josh Greene leads the team in assists with 3.6 per game and is second in scoring, averaging 10.6 per outing. Greene is a 6-0 180lb guard with a sweet, sweet FT touch shooting 90.5% on the season and some great defensive abilities as well, leading the Matadors in steals. His outside shot is still being developed and has only made 16 of his 59 attempts on the year. Greene is second only to Vinnie McGee who is 17 of 91 on the season. As a team the Matadors are shooting a bit over 26% from outside, but are 78% from the FT line. Clearly this is a team that thrives on their inside game and getting to the foul line, where they average 22 attempts per game.

Vinnie McGee is a 5-10 170lb guard with 9.7 ppg on the year. He is second in assists with 2.7 per game, but is also averaging 2 turnovers per game.  He is a 75% free throw shooter and like the rest of his team does most of his work inside the paint. McGee does lead the team in 3-point makes, but with a 28% shooting average from deep, he is not a huge threat from outside.

Frankie Eteuati is their starting center and is build very similar to UW’s own Jernard Jerreau. Eteuati stands 6-10, but weighs in at only 190lb. He is not a big contributor averaging only 1.4 points and 2.1 rebounds in his 8 games thus far. The Matadors do not possess a true big man threat, something the Huskies would be good to attack.

Predicted Starting Line-Ups:

Cal State:

G – Vinnie McGee 5-10 170lb
G – Josh Greene 6-0 180lb
G – Aqeel Quinn 6-4 190lb
F – Stephan Hicks 6-5 190lb
F – FrankieEteuati 6-10 190lb

Washington:

G – Abdul Gaddy 6-3 185lb
G – C.J. Wilcox 6-5 190lb
G – Terrence Ross 6-6 195lb
F – Darnell Gant 6-8 230lb
C – Aziz N’Diaye 7-0 260lb (If N’Diaye is still out, I’d bet on Desmond Simmons starting)

Keys to the Game:

• Attack the Rim - Only Tony Wroten has been doing this as of late. While I commend him for this, he has no right hand and this often leads to terrible lay-ins that clunk off the rim. I appreciate him drawing fouls, but he is still a terrible foul shot. Ross and Wilcox need to get aggressive and start taking shots inside. Wilcox has been better than Ross at this, but he all to often draws up short of contact, missing out on easy free throws. With the Matadors lacking a strong inside presence, UW can really affect the game by getting in the paint and attack them at their weakness.
• Defense - This may seem vague, but after the horrendous defense UW put out against the Jackrabbits I feel like it has to be said. Too many players are not getting the lateral movement they need to stay in front of their man and in turn preventing them from driving the lanes. The Dawgs need to communicate better on defense to ensure rotations lead to tight man coverage rather than open shots.
• Rebounding - This is something the Huskies can do either very well or very poorly depending on the game. Recently its been on the up-and-up with Simmons and Ross leading the way behind the ever constant N’Diaye. It’s all about controlling the offensive glass to give our shooters opportunities and maintaining the defensive glass to prevent second chance shots by the opposition. I think a big part of tomorrows game will be how well UW can use its superior size to eat up rebounds.

Final Score Prediction: - UW-85 CSN-70

I truly hope Romar watches the tape from our last game and begins to appreciate just what kind of work Simmons does for our team. He is one of the toughest, hardest working players I’ve seen since Jon Brockman was rocking the number 40. He needs more play time and a bigger role in the team’s game plan.

I also hope Romar begins to coach Wroten on how to use his right hand and begins to hold him more responsible for his wild plays and passes. He has to learn that this is college, not high school, and players are much more aware and capable of stopping his plays form happening.

If Ross and Wilcox and finally begin to deliver inside and develop into the players they should be, this team will greatly benefit from it. At this point, UW needs to win the conference title with at least 14 wins to secure an at-large bid, but I will not feel comfortable unless we secure the Pac-12 auto bid by winning the conference tournament.

I hope this team can turn things around because at this point the season has been a huge bust of wasted potential.

Go Dawgs!

John McLellan / UW Daily

And, thanks to reader A-Dub who pointed out an error in my explanation of the stat originally in this post.

The least you should know:

Without ever playing spectacularly (40.3% field goal percentage, 20 turnovers), the Huskies handled Northridge without too much drama this evening.

Quincy Pondexter was, again, the Huskies’ best player tonight, scoring 20 points, and adding seven rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks.

After building a 12-point halftime lead, the Huskies allowed the Matadors to close within one over the opening minutes of the second half before pulling away for good.

To read the rest of the game post (for free, of course), please click here to go over to UDubSports.com.

The Huskies (5-1) will host the Cal State Northridge Matadors on Sunday evening at 7:00 PM at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

The game will be broadcast on FSN and KJR-950 in Seattle, or your local Husky radio affiliate elsewhere (click here to find yours).

Tale of the tape: We’re going to try this new feature tonight. Please let me know what you think!

What you need to know about the Huskies:

The Huskies look to rebound from their 99-92 overtime loss to Texas Tech on Thursday night. The Huskies were in position to win the game in the final five seconds when Elston Turner went to the line and missed two big free throws.

At least until the new rankings come out, The Huskies remain ranked 12th in the AP poll and 10th in the Coaches’ Poll, their highest showing since January 2006.

Quincy Pondexter comes into this game following his career-high point total (31), which he told The Seattle Times he didn’t care about at all, since the Huskies lost the game. Pondexter also blamed himself for the loss despite his impressive numbers.

The Huskies’ other star, Isaiah Thomas, has had three rough games in a row. Although he scored 16, 13 and 18 points respectively in the games against San Jose State, Montana and Texas Tech, Thomas has shot 13-44 (29.5%) over that stretch.

This will be the third all-time meeting between the Huskies and the Matadors, with UW having won every game in the series. They last played in 2008, with the Huskies winning 80-66 at Hec Ed.

Projected lineup: G – Venoy Overton, G – Isaiah Thomas, G – Elston Turner, F – Quincy Pondexter, F – Matthew Bryan-Amaning

Huskies to watch:

Sophomore guard, Elston Turner, and junior forward, Matthew Bryan-Amaning: On a night in which the Huskies missed 12 free throws and had 19 turnovers, Turner and MBA, respectively, had the miscues that will be remembered. Will Turner, who otherwise had his best game as a Husky (career-high 15 points, four rebounds), get the chance to start again and bury some more big threes? Can Bryan-Amaning, a player whose confidence tends to spike and plummet minute-to-minute, focus on the positives he’s shown this season, instead of the bad pass against Tech?

What you need to know about Cal State Northridge:

The Matadors come into the game at 4-3, having won their last three games, most recently defeating Idaho at home on Thursday night, 95-93.

The Matadors won the Big West conference last season, going 17-14 overall and losing 81-70 to Memphis in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Head coach Bobby Braswell is in his fourteenth season as the head coach of the Matadors. He lost five of his top eight performers from last season, but fields a team heavy on upperclassmen in 2009/2010.

The Matadors, like the Huskies, play a fast-paced game and like to get out and run. Point guard Mark Hill is cut from the same mold as Husky guards, Isaiah Thomas and Venoy Overton — he plays the game at a breakneck pace, even if there are moments his coach wishes he’d slow it down.

6’4″ senior guard Kenny Daniels is the team’s leading scorer, and comes off a 39-point performance against Idaho. He’s adept at driving to the rim, but also attempts more than three three-point shots per game, connecting on eight of 23 so far this season.

11 players average more than 10 minutes per game for the Matadors — evidence of both depth, and a coach who fears frequent substitutions about as little as Lorenzo Romar.

Projected lineup: G – Mark Hill, G – Raymond Cody, G – Kenny Daniels, F – Lenny Daniel, F – Michael Lizarraga

Matador to watch:

Senior forward, Willie Galick: Galick hasn’t started every game this season, but the 6’8″ forward is still second on the team in scoring (11.1 ppg) and rebounding (5.9 rpg), and shoots 56.5% from the field. After the Huskies got beat so frequently to the rim during the Texas Tech game, Galick would likely be a main beneficiary of similarly flawed defense by the Dawgs on Sunday.

The path to victory:

Lock the back door: Facing an adept running team for the first time on Thursday, the Huskies found themselves setting up too slowly and sloppily on defense, and got caught repeatedly on backdoor passes to streaking players along the baseline. One player, preferably Matthew Bryan-Amaning, when he’s in the game, must be instructed to play the safety position when the Matadors run and protect the rim.

Care with the ball at key moments: Venoy Overton and Isaiah Thomas provide a deadly combination for most teams to defend. Yes, Isaiah Thomas’s ridiculously ill-advised pass to Quincy Pondexter at the end of regulation, will be nearly forgotten about, since the ball rolled to Elston Turner. But, it was just one example of the Husky guards needing to slow it up (just a bit) and be more careful with the ball during crunchtime.

A quick word from the opposition:

Cal State Northridge head coach Bobby Braswell was kind enough to speak with us this week. Here’s part of what we discussed. Click here for the full interview:

Montlake Madness: Please give me the capsule scouting report on your team as you see it at this point — style of play, strengths, weaknesses, etc.

Coach Braswell: We won four of our last five games so I think we’re improving. Obviously we got off to a rough start having to go play at Purdue who’s the number-four-ranked team in the country right now. They’re a very good basketball team and we kind of got our nose bloodied a little bit but we’ve steadily made improvements as the seasons progressed

We’re known as a defensive-minded team. It’s still early in the year for us, we’ve got a lot of new guys that are here and are learning how to play defense the way I want to play defense.