Hoops: One Toasted Redhawk, Comin' Right Up!

Last night, UW played Seattle University at Hec Ed. This was a make up game for the Lehigh game that was cancelled during the Christmas snowstorms (December 23). It was a reasonably good game with a predictable result; SU got hammered by 27 with the final score UW 87 - Seattle U 60.

One of my seat neighbors characterized the game as a lose-lose proposition for UW; if we lost, we'd lose face (and NCAA tournament placement?) big time, if we won by less than 20, it would be a disgrace. So, the outcome was the only one that wouldn't diminish our prospects in any way.

The Huskies played their usual brand of in-your-face, ball-denial defense and the SU guards had a tough time getting their offense to run. For the first couple of minutes, it looked like they might be able to make a game of it, though I was thinking in the back of my mind that it was just the adrenaline rush working and when that wore out, the Redhawks were done for. After battling to a 4-4 tie in the first couple of minutes (UW had a tough time with their 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones for a little while), the initial rush wore out and the onslaught started.

It seemed that we stole the ball practically at will. Our defense was definitely the engine that was making our offense go. On top of that, when we did get into a half court set, we were able to get the ball in to Jon Brockman or Matthew Bryan-Amaning seemingly at will. Brockman converted a lot of those, scoring 16 points before he went out with about 9 minutes left to play. MBA, on the other hand, couldn't seem to find the bucket last night, scoring only two points on foul shots (and he was 2 for 4 there!). He did contribute on defense, swatting numerous shots away and rebounding ferociously.

Everyone on the Huskies played, with the exception of Tyreese Bresheers (who is on the roster, but I have not seen him play all year). Everyone who played, scored. Artem Wallace came in with 9:46 to go; he scored 8. Joe Wolfinger came in at 6:20; he scored 7 (a deuce, a three, and two foul shots (2-2). Hell, even Scott Suggs scored!

The last 10 minutes were pretty much garbage time. The cushion was 25-30 points and it stayed pretty much that way with the teams trading buckets from one end to the other.

The only negative thing I can say about SU is the incredibly dirty play I saw coming from their junior guard from Hillsboro, Oregon, Chris Gweth. He knocked Isaiah Thomas to the floor from behind on a layup that he had no chance of blocking. He undercut Quincy Pondexter as he went up for a bucket, causing him to come down hard on the back of his shoulders/neck/head. A touch more wrong angle there and they would have had to carry out a paralyzed or dead - (Dale Earnhardt died from the same sort of basal skull fracture) player. I'm surprised that the Huskies didn't single him out for revenge. It certainly would have sucked to have two of our starters taken out by a backup player; our chances of advancing in the Pac-10 or NCAA tournaments would be much lower without either of those guys, especially I.T..