This week the Dawgs head down to Corvallis to face off against the Oregon schools. First up is the Ducks.

We all share a communal hatred for these, but throughout this article I will try my best to leave this deep seed of disdain removed from the conversation.

The Ducks are led by Dana Altman. Hah! The Ducks are led by a girl! Wait, No? Dana is a boy? Well that ruins things. Gotta remind myself to stop mocking the Ducks. Man this'll be hard. Altman was a very successful coach at Creighton averaging of 20 wins per season. In comparison Lorenzo Romar has the Huskies averaging 21 wins per season. One must be reminded that Creighton is a smaller school so those numbers must be taken with a grain of salt. Altman was head coach of Kansas State for four years and did lead them to one tournament appearance. As a coach he is 2-8 in the Big Dance and has never made it out of the Round of 32.

Regardless he is generally considered to be a respectable coach with the ability to lead the Ducks to prominence. Maybe he won't lead them to a Final Four (that's fine by me) but he could very well turn them into contenders for the Pac-12 title.

This year's rendition of the Ugly Ducks is fourth in the Pac-12 with a 7-4 (.636) record in conference.

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FIRST PLACE! Not me but the Huskies. After sweeping the LA schools at home, and combined with Cal's loss to Arizona, UW has one game lead in the conference. CAHusky holds onto one game in our pool. Big road trip for the huskies this weekend as they head to Oregon. Look out for Ben's preview in the next couple days. Here are the results:

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First of all, I want to thank Carl Shinyama, for one of his comments on my most recent post-game recap indirectly inspired me to write about this.
Last weekend I was playing a pick-up game at a local church and I realized I had lost a step from when I attempted to beat a friend of mine off the dribble whom I have always had little trouble getting by in the past. I failed miserably so I resorted to a pull-up jumper. This was easily blocked by his 6'-5" frame with monkey arms. I realized how much my back injury and the resulting inactivity had affected my ability to play. That was an injury that did not relate directly to my first step or leaping ability.

This relates very directly to the play of Abdul Gaddy this season. It is obvious that he does not have the explosion he had before he unfortunately fell victim to an ACL tear. This takes time to rebuild, and typically a torn ACL has to recover for two years before it is at full strength. I personally know somebody who tore her ACL and now, over a year later, it weighs on her mind with nearly every single time she cuts or jumps. She has mentioned that she no longer fights to stay up when she has been bumped, she just falls to protect her knee. This is a girl who can push people around. She is strong and can throw other girls around the court if she really felt like it. This is most likely very similar to how Gaddy feels.

I do not remember where I read this, but somewhere I read that when Deion Branch tore his ACL while playing for the Seahawks, he stated something to the affect of his knee no longer feeling natural. Every movement feels mechanical and stiff. I have not read anything in the years following, which probably means that his knee feels better now. I still believe that his knee will never again feel normal.

Gaddy's confidence in his explosion is most likely undermined by the tear in his knee from over a year ago.

There is another Husky who has torn his ACL. He is naturally more explosive than Gaddy, but the fact that is has been well over two years since the tear has allowed his natural explosion to return. That man is Tony Wroten. Wroten is quick. Really quick. His explosion combined with a low crossover allows him to get into the paint at will.

Wroten tore his ACL as a Junior in high school football. He missed his junior basketball season with the injury. Before, he was considered an extremely gifted point guard with one-and-done ability written all over him. Many scouts started to cool on him during his senior season due to the fact that his explosion was not at the level it was pre-ACL tear. That should have been expected. Knees need time to heal. Especially ACL tears.

We can see now that the explosion has returned and he has the explosion that scouts hoped would return. One must be patient with Gaddy however, it may be that it takes until mid-season next year for his knee to feel good enough and for him to re-gain the explosiveness he once had.

This post is about more than just showing patience with Gaddy however. It is about comparing and contrasting the play-styles of these two.

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The Men's basketball team swept the LA schools in Seattle this week to retain its one game lead over Colorado and California in the standings. The Buffs and the Bears are responsible for two of the Huskies three conference losses this season.

This week the Dawgs head down the Willamette Valley to face Oregon and Oregon State. The Huskies swept them to open the season in Seattle. The Ducks and the Beavers are more than capable of beating the Huskies this season so this is going to be a pretty crucial series.

Heading into the conference season most fans (including me) had written off the team as being too young to compete for a championship this season. As usual with most Romar led teams something began to click and now the Huskies are favorites to land another berth in the big dance.

Special thanks to Ben Knibbe for jumping in and doing a great job on basketball coverage this season. If there is anyone out there who would like to take a stab at writing about spring sports just let us know!

New Sports Arena

This really isn't Husky news but word that a new sports arena will likely be built that will house both the NBA and NHL teams is pretty big news. The proposed stadium district location makes a lot of sense. Hopefully the folks developing it won't demand the demolition of the old Coliseum which has many useful years left in it.

Super Bowl thoughts

Football season is now officially over now that another Super Bowl is in the books. I thought it was a pretty good game and I was kind of surprised that Brady wasn't able to drive his team down the field a little better at the end of the game. Too many dropped passes at the end for that to happen.

Now we get to see if Eli Manning is as amusing as his brother Peyton was on Saturday Night Live next week. I remember a sketch years ago in which Peyton's mother was chastised because he career as a QB had dead ended in the Canadian Football League.

As for the game I tend to tune in for the commercials. Matthew Broderick's day off in a Honda CRV and Jerry Seinfeld's (nice to see the soup Nazi again) quest to be the first owner of an Acura were pretty funny but Volkswagen's the Dog Strikes Back was probably my favorite.

Mailbag

Any new Huskies who will be here this spring?

The only one we know of at the moment is linebacker Ryan McDaniel who will arrive this spring to compete for the spot at MLB vacated by Cort Dennison.

What happened to Chris Young and Darius Waters?

Young will be going to Arizona State. No idea what Waters is up to but he was no longer on the roster at Arizona Western with Young.

Where will the Huskies practice this spring?

They will be using the East practice field and the Dempsey indoor.

This was posted over on the Dawgman.com boards (big thanks to iqueral for originally posting these), and the links are too good not to pass along here too.

We all expect that new DC Justin Wilcox will implement more odd-numbered fronts here, and in anticipation of that, here are some good primers on understanding a 3-4 defense and that means in terms of roles and responsibilities for the various positions and how it compares to the 4-3:

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Flush with money from the coffers of America's TV networks the Pac 12 wasted no time remaking itself once the season was officially over. Complete coaching staffs were fired at four schools and replaced with experienced and aggressive coaching staffs at UCLA (Mora), Arizona (Rodgriguez), Arizona State (Graham), and Washington State (Leach).

In the aftermath of a 67-56 loss to Baylor in the Alamo Bowl UW coach Steve Sarkisian decided to fire most of his defensive staff and start from scratch. He proceeded to poach Wilcox (DC) and Sirmon (LB) from Tennessee, Heyward (DB) from Oregon State, Tosh Lupoi (DL) and Erik Kiesau (OC) from Cal.

2012 evolved into perhaps the nastiest and most competitive off season of recruiting anyone associated with the conference can remember. PSA commitments meant little as assistant coaches changed jobs with ease and led their recruits in many different directions.

In the end the conference did well exceptionally well from top to bottom with Stanford finish 6th in the country on top and Washington State finishing 53rd on the bottom.

1. Stanford - The Cardinal was solid all the way across the board but the highlight was how well they did on the offensive line. I am not sure if I have ever seen a better OL class than that. They even picked up RB Barry Sanders Jr.. Grade - A Plus

2. USC - They could only take 15 so the recruiting services mark them down a bit for that but the 15 they got averaged a total of 3.8 on the star meter. Zach Banner and Kevyon Seymour are a couple of guys I would have preferred to see in purple and gold . Grade - A

3. Oregon - The Ducks put together their usual solid class with the highlight being the number one DL in the country Arik Armstead. Deforest Buckner is another solid get on the defensive side of the ball. Grade - A

4. Washington - Sark and company rallied for a solid finish in California. Criticisms are that they missed big time locally on the OL and didn't pick up the big OLB they coveted. Two franchise quality QB's was the highlight on offense. An all star DB class is the highlight on the other side of the ball. Grade - B Plus

5. UCLA - Who said Jim Mora couldn't recruit? He did a tremendous job in his first year but just like his predecessors he didn't bring in enough quality offensive linemen which has been one of the programs biggest problems. He picked up a couple of QB's but I wouldn't describe either of them as being franchise quality. Grade - B Plus

6. Colorado - Jon Embree and his staff know how to recruit. For the second year in a row they snatched a number of players off Washington's board. The highlight of the class is scoring big time on both lines. The negatives are that they aren't getting the play makers they need on offense and they aren't keeping the best guys in state at home. Grade - B

7. Utah - Jeremiah Poutasi was part of a huge offensive line class. That includes some JC guys to fill the gaps now and some great HS guys to develop for the future. They didn't get the play maker they needed at QB. They did a great job keeping in state talent home which will be the key to this program going forward. Grade - B

8. California - The Bears had the best class in the Pac 12 until Washington came in and upset the apple cart. Kenny Lawler and Bryce Treggs bring a great skill set to the wide out positions. Michael Barton has All Pac 12 LB written all over him. Grade - B Minus

9. Arizona State - A new head coach and too many JC's for one class for my liking. DJ Foster has the ability to develop into a marquee running back. Grade - C

10. Oregon State - The coaching changes on the west coast didn't help the Beavers. They lost some big time recruits over the last two weeks. One guy they didn't lose was OT Isaac Seumalo who decided to stay home. Grade - C

11. Arizona - If they can get a late commit from all world Davonte Neal it would really help this class out. Rodriguez is doing a better job keeping local recruits home which was a problem for Stoops. Grade C

12. Washington State - Welcome to Pullman Mike Leach. You thought Lubbock was desolate..nope...Pullman is desolate. He picked up a couple of kids from Pago Pago that UW was also looking at. WR Gabriel Marks is a great get. Grade C