Husky Basketball Roundup

Husky team awards were given out. Jon Brockman took home the MVP, Justin Dentmon and Quincy Pondexter shared the Most Improved Player award and Venoy Overton won the Defensive Player award. Those are just the main ones, and a total of 11 were given out. (GoHuskies)

Pondexter had hernia surgery. Apparently it was something that was lingering toward the end of the season, which has me thinking: how good can Quincy Pondexter be? He was (in my estimation) far and away the best Husky in the Tournament (23/8 vs. MSU, 20/10 vs Purdue), with this injury. Would a healthy Q-Pon have been enough to push UW past the Boilermakers? Maybe it would, and maybe it didn't effect him that much, but the good news from all of this is that he won't be declaring for the draft (though I don't think there was much worry of that anyway). (Condotta)

Joe Wolfinger makes official what we already knew was coming. Wish him all the best at wherever he lands. There's just not a lot of court time for a 7 foot player who wants to be a 2-guard. (Condotta)

Will Conroy continues to light up the D-League. Including a 53 point performance a little bit ago, boosting his average to 26.5 per game. Oh, and he puts up 7.9 assists to go with that. Which prompts the question: What does the former Husky (and all-time assists leader) have to do to get out of the D-League and into the NBA? (Seattlesportsnet)

Spencer Hawes is done for the rest of the year, thanks to a flagrant foul from Kenyon Martin. (ESPN)

Brockman is moving up draft boards. To save you the time of scrolling down, here's what they wrote about him:

Brockman was dominant on the boards at the Portsmouth Invitational, even though he is only about 6-foot-6 or 6-foot-7. Brockman put up double-double after double-double at Portsmouth, and even surpassed 20 rebounds in one of his games.

-TheHoopsReport

And NBADraft.net has him going 59th to the Lakers in their latest mock.

Brockman was also the recipient of the Chip Hilton Award. Not sure what that is? Me neither. Per Wikipedia:

The Chip Hilton Player of the Year Award is presented to a basketball player who has demonstrated personal character both on and off the court, similar to the fictional Chip Hilton character depicted by Hall of Fame coach Clair Bee in the classic Chip Hilton series of sports stories.

The NCAA has given the national award since 1997 to a Division I men’s basketball player who demonstrates outstanding character, leadership, integrity, humility, sportsmanship and talent.

Guys like Emeka Okafor, Shane Battier and Tim Duncan have won it in previous years. (UDubSports)

Here are a couple of interviews with incoming all world recruit Abdul Gaddy, one text (USABasketball), and and one of him on the radio. (Softy - KJR950) If you have time to give it a listen I recommend it. He says all of the right things; he's competitive, he expects to win, is excited about being a Husky, is working on his defense, and so on. The only thing I didn't like was in the text interview he said that he and Isaiah Thomas are "just trying to make it to the NBA." That's not what you want, Abdul. You both want to get degrees. You want to stay in college for four years. You want to have one of the best college basketball teams of all time in 3 years built around the two of you, Josh Smith and Tony Wroten. Trust me.

In some early looks at the 2009-2010, Fox Sports has UW 7th in the nation, and TheBigLead thinks the Huskies will be good enough for 10th. Great to be getting some respect, but as always take things this early with a grain of salt.

Joe Lunardi thinks that the UW will be a 6 seed next year. A bit weird that he thinks the Huskies will drop 2 seeds when most think they could be better, and UCLA is going to improve from a 6 to a 4 despite losing Jrue Holiday, Josh Shipp, Darren Collison and Alfred Aboya. Instant loss of credibility: predicting ASU to make the tourney. It's like he drew them out of a hat. (ESPN)

Got a link about past/current/future Husky players, the team in general, the Pac-10, or an idea for a story? Send it along.

Go Dawgs.