Huskies fall to Arizona State
by John Berkowitz on Mar 13, 2009 9:14 PM PDT
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PrintJames Harden scored 24 points, and Arizona State upset Washington 75-65 on Friday night in the semifinals of the Pac-10 tournament after blowing a 21-point lead.
Harden, the Pac-10 player of the year, shot 7-of-13, including 3-of-5 from 3-point range, and had nine rebounds and four assists for the fourth-seeded Sun Devils (24-8), who beat the Huskies for just the second time in the last 15 games between the schools.
Jeff Pendergraph had 18 points and seven rebounds, Derek Glasser added 16 points and five assists and Ty Abbott scored 12 points for Arizona State. The Sun Devils had a 3-10 record in previous conference tournaments and had never reached the semifinals, much less won the championship. They'll shoot for their first title Saturday.
Washington's Isaiah Thomas scored 17 points, Jon Brockman had 13 and six rebounds and Justin Dentmon added 11 points for the top-seeded Huskies who had their six-game winning streak snapped and lost for just the second time in 11 games.
Glasser made two 3-pointers during an 11-0 run that gave the Sun Devils a 69-60 lead with 3:03 left, and the Huskies didn't threaten after that. ASU outscored Washington 17-5 in the last six minutes.
After being thoroughly outplayed in the first half and trailing 38-21, the Huskies moved within nine points by outscoring the Sun Devils 14-6 to begin the second half.
After baskets by Glasser and Harden extended ASU's lead to 13, the game was halted for about five minutes when Washington's Venoy Overton and Harden collided, with Overton being knocked to the court. Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar sprinted onto the court to pull Overton away as players from both sides jawed at each other. Harden, Overton and Glasser were both hit with technical fouls.
That seemed to fire up the Huskies, who outscored the Sun Devils 20-6 to take a 55-54 lead with 8:14 remaining. Washington led 60-58 before Glasser and the Sun Devils took command.
The Huskies learned an important lesson tonight and that is they have to bring their "A" game almost every night to win in this league. A lackluster victory over Stanford the night before spelled trouble going into this one.
It would have been nice if Washington had advanced to the championship game but they get to return home early and save their legs which is probably a bigger reward this time of the season than winning this meaningless tournament. When you win the championship outright this type of thing is a little redundant.
Washington will either be a #3 or #4 seed and end up staying in the Northwest for their first two game of the tournament. I think they learned an important lesson tonight that should get them back on track for the tough journey ahead.
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Well I got half my prediction right
Too bad it was the wrong team. Our first half was a complete melt down. Our shots fell like bricks in the first half, almost as if we were just throwing the ball at the hoop instead of actually taking a shot. We dug ourselves a hole and it took a lot to climb out of it.
Many will say that Overton is a punk or a thug. He’s neither. What Venoy is doing is playing tight ball pressure defense and doing everything that the officials will allow. Yet with our depth he can be as aggressive as he wants to be. Why? Because we have depth. That is the true beautty of having depth. You have the luxury of playing more aggressive then the opponent. Like any of us would, Venoy takes advantage of that.
I thought the aggressor in the confrontation was Harden. After making that layin, Harden went right towards Overton to show him up. Glasser continued the taunt. Now the thing is, if Overton keeps his cool, which he should’ve done, then both Harden and Glasser receive technicals. That would’ve been huge. A championship team keeps it’s cool and we’ve got to learn that. Overton is playing the way his coach has taught him and if that pisses off Harden and Glasser then so be it. But not retaliating could’ve been a huge advantage to us.
Once we got the lead, coach pulls both Brockman and QPon. I didn’t like that move by coach. We finally get the lead and we lost all our momentum. Finally we see that the game is starting to slip away and coach gets Brockman and QPon back in the game. But the problem is we can’t get them in fast enough and ASU turns a tight game into a four point lead down the stretch. That was a huge rotation mistake! We should’ve road Brockman and QPon while we had the lead and momentum and it just killed us.
Yet here’s the thing ASU hit the big shots down the stretch. Give the Sundevils the credit the stepped up and knocked down the shots. Hopefully USC beats Arizona State for the tournament championship. If ASU wins it all, they (ASU) could possibly leap frog us for seeds.
And yes casino- USC is smokin’ HOT!
All I saw was purple
Mr. Excitement
One can see how other teams/fans would dislike VO, but he’s just an incredibly aggressive presence on the court, pushing the rules as far as possible. Yes, he still gets out of control at times, and he lacks consistency from 3-range, but what he does for his team is something unique.
On the other hand, I complained before about ASU and their arm-bar ball control tactics, which are patently illegal in and of themselves, and were flagrant enough this game to be obvious on TV. Well, no more Pac-10 officiating this year. Now the challenge for our guys will be to recognize and quickly adapt to the style of whatever league/crew is appointed to each game—and in a defense as aggressive as ours, knowing the limits is critical to staying in the game.
Officiating in the Tournament
Agree. I think we may find the officiating not to our liking come tournament time. The Pac 10 officiating has not been consistent with how the rest of the nation is calling college basketball. Venoy might find himself with three quick fouls if we don’t realize how the game is being called early on. A great championship team knows how to adapt to officiating in tournament play. This is going to be a huge wall for us to get over. As aggressive as we play we’d better learn that really quick.
All I saw was purple
PAC-10 Refs
Not so quick my friends!!! 18 PAC-10 refs have been selected to work the tourney this year. That’s the most of anyone conference.
It could be just their rotation in regards to officiating assignments. Some say that the tournament is on the up and up. Not always the case. Believe me politics shows its ugly face in this thing too.
That’s why Arizona and USC still had good shots to make the tournament. With USC winning last night, it drops Arizona out and put USC in. Politics plays a roll.
All I saw was purple
Information, please
In the past, officiating assignments have been done like football bowl games: ref’s from a neutral league are assigned to each game. So even if 18 Pac-10 ref’s were assigned to a 63-game tourney…
Snostrebia: You seem to have more info than me. Can you confirm this? I also wonder how far in advance the coaches are advised as to who/what conference will be calling each game?
Verge...
during the UW game yesterday (I think right around the Harden, Overton incident) one of the commentators made mention that 18 PAC-10 officials were selected to work the Tourney and that it was the most of any league.
Thanks, Snostrebia
I had to watch the game with no audio yesterday.
So if there are 6 teams of Pac-10 officials spread across 63 games, I’m going to assume that we won’t run into them, unless they’ve changed the protocol.
But now I wonder how the NCAA decided that our ref’s were so valuable?
Overton should never, EVER take threes.
And Gant should not take 12-footers, no matter how open he is.
Other than that, I don’t have a problem with any of the other guys throwing up the shots that they do. I think we need to get Pondexter the ball at about the free throw line more often, he just dominates from there. He’s got a better eFG% than IT and Brockman. I think we need to intentionally get the ball in his hands in a scoring position more often.
Disagree
The problem with that is the opposition will see that and adjust their defense to it. Notice how opposing defenses will leave Gant, Holiday, and Venoy unguarded on the perimeter? That’s by design and they want Gant, Holiday, and Venoy to shoot those shots. That leaves the opposing defense to double up on QPon, Brockman, Dentmon, and IT at their disposal. And with that said…
I think our tournament foes are going to use that to defend us. They are going to double up on Brockman or QPon and they’re going to play tight perimeter defense on Dentmon and IT. Leaving Gant, Holiday, and/or Venoy open is brilliant. Why? Because you force the non-scorers to beat you.
These guys have to keep shooting. The problem is they aren’t knocking down their shots. If they knock em’ down then surely someone will have to step out and guard them- not to mention but Brocky won’t get doubled up so often. Now I understand your frustration with the clanked shots, but if our guys don’t shoot those shots then we are forcing ourselves into a corner. Good players come up with big shots. ASU did it last night and we unfortunately didn’t.
All I saw was purple
I agree 100% Crazi
This is why Romar puts Turner in the rotation. It forces the other teams D to have to guard one more guy closely on the perimeter and opens up room inside for Brock, Qpon & IT.
He definitely needs...
…to work on his three point shooting. If they are just going to be absolutely unafraid of that and not defend him. he has to be able to knock those down.
Washington Husky Football-1991 National Champions
When they took the lead they should have kept Brockman in the game.
Once he came out and they went small…complete meltdown.
The Seattle Times is in trouble…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090313/ap_on_bi_ge/seattle_no_newspaper_town_3
The Seattle Times
Frank Blethen has made some expensive mistakes over the years which really have compromised the ability of the newspaper to stay alive. Seattle should be able to support a single print newspaper indefinitiely. The problem is the debt service to fund the mistakes that Blethen has made may not be available during this significant down time.
The Times was a huge cash cow for years that didn’t properly diversify its investments in other areas as a significant hedge. The purchase of the newspapers in Maine was a huge folly. The fight with the PI/Hearst to break the JOA was a huge cash draining mistake. One by one they have had to sell off land investments in the Denny Regrade area to help stem the flow. I don’t think the family received good legal advice and if they did they ignored that advice because of Frank’s immense ego.
I don’t know if you remember this but Frank is the guy who shot his neighbors dog with a gun from his front porch. Doing something stupid like that tells you quite a bit about his entitled thought process.
Should the state cut taxes to help his family business survive the mistakes he has made?
If this was all about the Blethen family I would say no. Unfortunately it isn’t all about the Blethen family. The Times is a large employer and countless families are dependent on the newspapers survival to support their families. I can tell you this. There are plenty of people who work there who are very nervous about their futures. My cousin took a forced early retirement from the Times only last year during a cost reduction move. He worked their for over thirty years.
Seattle needs a daily newspaper and if the Times went under it would be a tragedy. If it does someone would be their to move into the market despite the declining profitability of newspapers. It is just too big a market to ignore.
by John Berkowitz on Mar 14, 2009 11:12 AM PDT up reply actions
SC fellas is the HOTTEST team coming out of our league!
Whether you hate him or love him, Tim Floyd is one helluva good basketball coach. That guy has used his bench brilliantly in this tournament. He knows what is on the line and he knows his best chance of winning and getting an invite the the NCAA tournament is with his ones. In the USC/Cal game, Floyd didn’t substitute a soul in the 2nd half. He road his starters from halftime to :00 and it paid dividends.
Now with the no time for rest between beating Cal and facing Ucla, Floyd had to substitute more vs. the Bruins. He wasn’t about to lose to Ucla with dead legs. Floyd never substituted more then one benchwarmer into the game at any one point during USC’s run thru Ucla last night.
I have USC in the tournament and Arizona out. I think the NCAA is going to want to showcase DeMar DeRozen and make no mistake this is not a team you want to have to deal with right now. USC is getting hot at the right time and could be the best team in the Pac 10 right now.
Washington needs to refocus. We played two games in our Pac 10 tournament and we didn’t play very well. I think by now our league has figured out how to defend us. Double down on Brock and QPon, play tight perimeter defense on Dentmon and IT and leave Gant, Holiday, and Venoy open. Force that three player combination to beat you. For us to bag a few wins in the NCAAs we need these three guys to be active and to knock down their shots.
USC is HOT!
All I saw was purple
Wrong thread but...
Did you guys see that we got a verbal from Chris Young. He looks like he’d be a linebacker but DAWGman has him listed as a safety. Some people think he’s the top defensive player out of Washington. He’s 6’1" and 215. Keep em comin baby!
Washington Husky Football-1991 National Champions
Yep
Old news dawgfan, where you been on vacation? Kidding aside, I think Young is a bigtime safey, a Lawyer Milloy or Tony Parrish type guy.
This is dam good! I think Heaps is holding his pencil and waiting to see if we get a great class coming in. If we do then Heaps will sign. He doesn’t want to do the Locker thing and sign with no supporting cast recruited with him. Heaps wants a big class signed and if that happens then Heaps will be a Dawg.
All I saw was purple
I heard...
…that he may commit early to be a magnet for the class.
Washington Husky Football-1991 National Champions
Youngs film is outstanding...
I see him at LB as he is already at 220 lbs. With a little time in the weight room he could be a solid 235 to 240. One thing is for sure – the kid loves contact. : )
Belotti?
Did you hear that Mike Belotti stepped down as well? Never been a fan of Belotti. He is the Phil Jackson of college football. Rich Brooks built the Oregon program- Belotti just took it to another level. One blemish on Belotti’s Oregon resume- zero appearances in the Rose Bowl.
The Rose Bowl is the big prize and Belotti never got there. I see Coach Sark in the Rose Bowl within 4 years. Countem’- FOUR!
Go Huskies! WOOF!!!
All I saw was purple
OK...
…I’ll make a mental note of that. I’ve got to give your prediction some credibility because you ARE THE MAN ;O)
Washington Husky Football-1991 National Champions
Dammit.
At least we’ll get a 3 seed.
Why would I watch Transformers when I can play with them at my house?
by .Taylor on Mar 14, 2009 8:38 PM PDT reply actions
That'll get us through the second round.
Why would I watch Transformers when I can play with them at my house?
by .Taylor on Mar 14, 2009 8:38 PM PDT up reply actions
I HOPE!
Why would I watch Transformers when I can play with them at my house?
by .Taylor on Mar 14, 2009 8:38 PM PDT up reply actions
3 Seed in the NCAAs
With Arizona State losing to USC, I think we are safe at a 3 seed. I thought that maybe if Arizona State could win the Pac 10 tournament then their might be an outside shot of leap frogging us for a higher seed. Thank you USC!
Even though the experts see Memphis as a No.1 seed, I don’t. I think Lousiville is the No.1 of No.1 seeds, followed by North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and UConn. Yeah that’s right I have 3 Big East teams in as a No.1 seed.
Oklahoma, Michigan State, Duke, and Memphis No. 2 seeds
Kansas, Wake Forrest, and Washington should be No.3 seeds. Not sure who will be the fourth No.3.
I have Washington, Ucla, Arizona State, Cal, and USC in the tournament. I have Arizona out. Reason? Because the majority believes the Pac 10 is down and if we’re down then our league isn’t going to get 6 invites. Yeah everybody says it has nothing to do with league affiliation. In hindsite that is accurate. But politics plays a part in all of this. A perceived down Pac 10 is not getting 6 invites. And if Arizona pops up on the board then I’ll tip my cap to Pennell, Budinger, Wise, Hill, and even Legendary Lute. But they’re out for the first time in 25 years.
Go Huskies! WOOF!!!
All I saw was purple
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