So due to the fact I had to take a ferry home and I have work early tomorrow I won't get to the player by player reviews until I get off my shift around 5pm.
Final Score: UW-80 USF-52
New starting line up for the Dawgs today. MBA joined Aziz, Abdul, IT, and Holiday to start the game. It worked out very well for the Huskies who out rebounded USF 40-33. We couldn't buy a 3 point shot all game. Don't know what was happening, but they just kept clanging out. The only player finding success from range was Scott Suggs who led the team in scoring tonight with 15 and went a perfect 3 for 3 from range. Here are some other numbers to chew on from tonight's game. Isaiah was 2-7 from range, Holiday was 1-5, Gaddy was 0-4, even Wilcox was 0-3. Only 6 for 26 on the night. Worst shooting performance in a win yet, but we still manage to win by 28. Just think what would have happened had we shot at our normal 45, 46% clip, 12 makes means an additional 18 points and a final score of 98-52 a 46 point win. When all is said and done, we got the win, we played very solid and did a great job avoiding panicking with our shots not dropping.
USF might be the least exciting team to be currently playing basketball at the Division 1 level. Their one and only play was spend 25 seconds floating at half court passing the ball off to avoid a 5 second call then with 10 seconds left the center would screen up, the guard would attempt to drive and then either shoot or dish to a hopefully open man on the outside. It took away a lot of opportunities and killed the fast tempo that was going on during the first half. The first foul wasn't committed until 12 minutes left in the first half. It was beautiful. The Huskies didn't receive a foul until 7 minutes left and at one point the Dons had 10 fouls to the Huskies 1. I'm almost positive half of the Dons first 10 fouls were offensive. They simply couldn't handle the shut down defense they were forced to deal with.
MBA stepped up huge tonight rebounding, grabbing a team high 9 boards including 7 offensive boards. Wonderful performance and a great improvement over his somewhat lackluster games recently. Venoy had 6 boards followed by Suggs and Aziz with 5 a piece. Abdul had 7 assists and 0 turnovers. 7-0 wow. Isaiah had 5 assists and 0 turnovers and Venoy had 7 assists and 1 turnover. The Huskies only committed 4 turnovers the entire night, while forcing the Dons to commit 17. 21 assists on 33 makes tonight. The passing was even better than it has been and that is saying something.
The Huskies had 8 blocks tonight, including 4 by Aziz alone. The big dude was smashing people left and right in there. It was awesome.
Isaiah added 12 tonight, while MBA and Abdul put up 10. Aziz had 9 and Justin Holiday had a quiet 8 points. Every Husky scored tonight, including Brendan Sherrer who played 4 minutes today and scored on another beautiful pass off by Venoy on a pick and roll play. Antoine Hosley added two from the free throw line.
Speaking of free throw line. Isaiah has re-tuned his free throw shot, taking a longer pause after his dribbles and it looks as though the extra time is allowing him to concentrate and make his shots. He was 2 for 3 from the line tonight.
Suggs was the MVP of the night going 6-7 from the floor on top of his rebounding and defense. Get this, he only played 15 minutes. Romar, give the man some more time when he is our best shooter and the only player on the court dropping shots in consistently.
I really like what I saw out there tonight. Romar was having the team run some great back door cuts that led to several alley-oop baskets and dunks. There was a real focus on the half court offense as well as our rebounding. Our rebounding really allowed us to get some nice second chance looks after so many missing in the first half. The Huskies missed their first 9 from range before Suggs came in and dropped 2 in a row. Again, give MBA credit for picking up 7 offensive boards. That is a great number and he deserves some love after all the criticism he has received. If he keeps that up we will be looking good. Aziz didn't put up huge rebounding numbers with only 5, but adding in 4 blocks and 9 points gives him a solid outing. Romar has said he will keep the same line up Wednesday and I have a feeling we will be seeing it against USC and UCLA who both sport larger line ups.
I'll have more info up tomorrow after work and a preview for the Nevada game up by noon or so on Tuesday.
Highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzWYRDiRheM&feature=sub
Links: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/huskymensbasketballblog/2013714482_washington_goes.html
http://www.mynorthwest.com/category/college_hoops_blog/20101219/Dawgs-%22rebound%22-better,-down-Dons-80~52/
http://espn.go.com/ncb/recap?gameId=303520264
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