The Monday Morning Wash
by John Berkowitz on Mar 22, 2010 4:43 PM PDT
26 comments
I have been busy the last three weeks with projects at work and at home so sometimes the articles get out a little late and I apologize for that. Today was no exception and rather than hammer out the Monday Morning Wash I substituted it temporarily with the first defensive position review of the spring pre season which was actually earmarked for Tuesday.
So to make a long story short you are all getting your Monday Morning Wash in the evening today and there happens to be lots to talk about. First of all how about our basketball team? How many of you would have predicted Sweet Sixteen in January?
To me this team looks like it is getting better every time it hits the court and that is a good thing because West Virginia is on tap for Thursday night and if they get by that opponent to the Elite Eight it looks like Kentucky will be waiting or the Dawgs.
When the brackets first came out I liked our draw a lot better than Gonzaga's and California. That turned out to be true since both were eliminated this past weekend. Looking ahead the Final Four seems to be a realistic goal because Washington has the ability to play toe to toe with WVU and Kentucky.
The thing that is driving this surge has been the play in the middle by Matthew Bryan-Amaning. Make no mistake that every Husky who hits the floor is contributing in a big way but the play of Bryan Amaning is deflecting the pressure on Thomas and Pondexter. his extra push in the middle has helped Washington push its level of play up a couple of notches and the experts are noticing.
In the last game I heard one of the announcers comment on the way he runs the court. It is a real advantage for your big man to get down the court as quickly as the guards. He is also playing some stellar defense, rebounding well, and blocking shots. If Washington continues to advance Bryan-Amaning will be one of the reasons.
West Virginia is no pushover. They are the #2 seed in the Eastern region and are a battle tested Big East squad who can play with anyone. If Washington is going to knock these guys off they need to contain Da'Sean Butler who racked up 28 points in a victory over Missouri. WVU is really going to challenge the Husky defense.
The Mountaineer's are excellent defensively and may be the most tough nosed group of defenders Washington has faced this season. A year ago we faced Purdue and lost because we couldn't hande the defense they were dishing out. This will be a similar challenge with WVU getting the nod over last years Purdue squad on offense. the huskies are going to have to continue shooting well to advance to the Elite Eight.
Football Notes
RB Chris Polk, OT Cody Habben, DE Andru Pulu, DE Kelani Aldrich, S Victor Aiyewa, and DE Everrette Thompson will all miss spring practice while recovering from injuries.
The latest to go down is Thompson who tore his achilles tendon. That isn't good news for the DE position. Jason Wells suffered the same type of injury last pre season and missed most of the season. Not exactly sure what the prognosis is for Thompson who does have a RS year he hasn't used.
Vic Aiyewa is targeted for LB in the fall according to Coach Holt. Another safety to be named may be headed that direction this spring. Marquise Persley has moved over to safety from CB to help fill out the depth in anticipation of future moves.
DeShon Matthews who started his career as a DE will be moved back to the position this spring because of depth concerns. He was buried at DT but moves into a starting spot for now at DE. The Huskies will struggle to stay two deep at DE this spring.
Not exactly sure what is going to happen to Andru Pulu. The details of the incident he was involved in are pretty gruesome. He turned himself in to Seattle police last week. His future with the football team is very cloudy even though he hasn't been dismissed from school as of yet.
Kelani Aldrich is sitting out this spring in an attemt to get completey healthy. He has a knee that had to be drained once a week during the season and it has hindered his development. When healthy you can pencil him as a starter and that is what the coaches are attempting to do this spring...get him healthy.
All these great tidbits come from the Seattle Times Bob Condotta who has been spending some time with Coach Holt over the past week.
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Agreed John, it would've been hard to predict anything
The way we were playing it seemed at best NIT city. But for the last few years I really thought this team had something special. One thing that has been special is the depth we’ve been fortuante to keep in place. Teams that play late in the NCAA tournament have depth and we have depth as good or better then most still in this tournament.
Another thing that works in our favor is scheme. We play like the old UNLV or Arkansas clubs of years gone bye and it his hard to replicate in slower teams practices. What is nice is that this team is coming together and peeking at the right time. We’ve seen a drop in turnovers, and we continue to out rebound our opponents. Yet the beautty of what’s really going on is that we’ve been consistent on the perimeter.
West Virginia has almost a week to prepare for us and I’m sure Bobby Huggins is looking at a lot of film to figure out how the best way to slow us down. This week the West Virginia game is the critical one due to Huggins having a lot of time to prepare his team. And on Kentucky- don’t be too sure that Cornell doesn’t send them packing. An all senior-led team vs. a bunch of freshmen might come into play. If Cornell hits their shots like they have been, I say advantage Cornell. Hitting your shots is HUGE, because if a not-so-athletic team can hit their shots consisently it voids out athletism. Most often I take fundamentally sound over talent. Not calling the Cornell upset, but I do think Cornell is going to go into the Kentucky game well prepared and not intimidated by a bunch of freshmen. That’s it.
Go Dawgs! WOOF!!!
All I saw was purple
But did Condotta mention whether his time with Holt was....AWESOME?
Kidding aside, good run in the tourny so far
by Brian Floyd on Mar 22, 2010 5:50 PM PDT via mobile reply actions
Vic Aiyewa at LB- love it!
He’s big enough to step in and give us needed depth at LB. I am almost counting down the days til Fall Camp!
All I saw was purple
2011 recruiting
Just wondering? Do we have openings on BB team next year for Kanter, Jones and Ross in that order?
If we get all three final four won’t be far behind.
Doubtful
They have Pondexter leaving and Simmons signed, so the slots are full. However, Romar has always been a sign them all and let it work out guy. 1 or 2 of those 3 may be more likely, but there has to be some attrition that follows
The UW has an open scholarship due to Garcia not being admitted, so they have room for 1 more besides Simmons.
This is all Sherrer's fault
I looked at the table and just saw the numbers, without subtracting Sherrer.
The Turk from WV is a good indicator of the potential NCAA ruling
Kanter will be out for the first 20 games or so.
We had one that was out a full season
Similar situation but three (I think) years ago. The NCAA was trying to fix the rule, I thought, but they’re not really that great at these kinds of things.
by Brian Floyd on Mar 23, 2010 12:01 AM PDT up reply actions
WHY??????????
This guy is as All-American as you can get. Turning down several PRO offers at seventeen years of age, one for six million.
All to get an education in the United States where he now plays basketball as a high school senior. His family is well educated and put a high value on education.
He intends to finish his University education. An all-American example we sorely need here.
In Turkey he is already an icon and a national treasure.
Please explain why he is any different than any other high school BB player?
The issue with Kanter is that he played on professional teams in Turkey and Europe, and players in the past who have done the same thing have been penalized by the NCAA by having to sit out a large number of games. I think the reason is that while these players can claim they weren’t paid, the NCAA can’t be certain of that. The NCAA strictly enforces amateurism in the sports their athletes participate in. It’d be one thing if he played another sport professionally, but his association with pro basketball teams is against NCAA rules if he wants to play NCAA basketball – thus the probable suspension.
This is correct
Basically, even if the player doesn’t get paid, as far as anyone knows, if they are surrounded by pro players getting paid above the NCAA threshold for amateurism, they tend to be punished. This is why even if he followed the rules, playing on a team with players who were compensated could land him in trouble. It’s also, in my opinion, on of the shortcomings of the NCAA rulebook. I hate this rule in regards to international players and think it punishes a lot of kids who did it the right way
by Brian Floyd on Mar 23, 2010 11:04 AM PDT up reply actions
You can play professionally
And against professionals, but you can’t play on the same team as anyone being paid. Take it up with the NCAA, it’s their weird rule.
MBA has been great, but his surge has also come against undersized opponents.
This weekend will be a true test of his growth. I’m a little worried about WVU’s size, but if we can turn the tempo dial to 11 and not look back I think we’ll come out on top.
Huggins is going to try to control tempo
Look only as far as the Duke/Cal game. Duke has a lot of dominant big men and they set the tone early with those bruisers vs. Cal. Huggins will attempt to keep the tempo in check and force us to play a half court game. That way they will be able to dominate the paint with their size.
For Washington to win, we have to rebound well vs. the Mountaineers. Defensive rebounding is going to be HUGE in this game. If we can win the defensive rebounding stat we should be able to force our tempo on them and get Huggins away from his gameplan. Defensive rebounds lead to breakouts and our uptempo offense starts with defensive rebounds, which lead to breakouts.
Who ever controls tempo is going to win this game.
All I saw was purple
I think we're also better off than Cal.
With the Amoke suspension, Cal was running a 6 man rotation at the end of the season and really did not have the depth to make the game uptempo, in fact they didn’t even try to do that against Duke because they knew they would be too gassed. The only chance they had was for their big 3 to go off and bomb away from 3.
WVU is also smaller than Duke. I like our chances.
recruiting
UW has two scholorships available and one is going to Simmons he has already signed so i dont think he can decommit but I think its 50/50 he redshirts. The offguard small foward position is a log jam. Turner Suggs Wilcox, and Simmons, Ross if qualifies, Trent can play both foward positions. If I were a betting man i would have to think Suggs transfers in kind of in Oliver fashion it would be better for him Romar has really started to give his minutes to ET. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could start for a decent team next year with his nice stroke he could draw some interest from some Euro teams when he is done and there is good money in that. I think it is almost certain that we have at least 1 transfer if not 2 (Turner, Trent, Gant) . Ross and Jones have acedemic issues so there could be problems with that. Calapari is in on Kanter so we will see how that goes every team knows that he will get a 20 game suspension so if they have to chose between a guy who will get a 20 susp and might enter the draft early they might be more inclined just to sign another player. One guy who i would like to see stay is Trent this guys upside is Lazar Hayward 6’5 can play inside or wing strong power dunker if he can work on his J I like him as a under the radar guy on this team and would consider him at a PF position. If some of these guys dont qualify look out for JC transfer Aziz D’Niaye 7’1 240 poor mans Thabeet Kansas is in on him as well. April 14 is Spring singing period so things should get real exciting in the next month.
I don't think he needs to
we need a true 5. We can get off in transition without the 5…it would also allow MBA to switch to the 4 spot (he’s a JC so I’m assuming he’s good enough to play 15-20 a game right off). I’ll trade in our 12335 lineup with 5 great athletes for a 12345 with 4 athletes and a true big man.
I also haven’t seen enough of him, but looking at his size it would appear he can’t fly like the rest of the team.
The Big East is now 1-3 so far - Greg Gumble
The Dogs chances just got better
WV ’s point guard has a broken right foot and is done for the tournament.
by Big Husky on Mar 23, 2010 9:14 PM PDT via mobile reply actions
I think it helps a bit but he wasn’t exactly one of their strengths….his backup is pretty comparable.
by John Berkowitz on Mar 24, 2010 3:50 PM PDT up reply actions
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