Coast to Coast – The Huskies Edition

By Blaidd Drwg

Yesterday was a good day to play for a team named the Huskies.

Huskies East Edition

hus01 — You won't see these Huskies in the Big Dance next week, but they are a hell of a lot cuter than either UCONN or UDUB

Winning 5 basketball games in 5 days isn’t easy under the best of circumstances, and when you are trying to do it in the Big East Tournament, that may just be the most impressive run in College Basketball history. The 19th ranked Huskies started off the Big East Tourney as the #9 seed, which means they got to play an extra game. Of course, that game was against DePaul, the worst team in the Big East, but they still had to play it and win. Once they disposed of the Blue Demons, they then had to run this gamut (these are the national rankings of their opponents): #22 Georgetown, #3 Pitt, #11 Syracuse and #14 Louisville. Granted they did not win any of those games by more than 3 points, but I don’t care who you are, beating 4 ranked teams in 4 days is amazing to say the least. Despite the big MO in the Huskies corner, I think they are in for a letdown in the second round of the Big Dance.

Huskies West Edition
On the other coast, the Washington Huskies, teetering on the bubble and barely surviving their game against WAZZU managed to take out Arizona and win the Pac10 automatic bid. This probably moved the Huskies up to somewhere around a 7 seed in the tournament, but I can’t figure this team out – some days they play like the team that was ranked earlier in the season and some days they play like they can lose to just about anyone. It should be interesting to see whom they end up matched up against when the seedings are announced later today.

The Dominance of Big East Basketball

By Blaidd Drwg

It is amazing how deep the Big East is this year – of the 16 teams in the conference, 11 of them finished with a conference record of at least .500, 10 teams had 20 wins, 7 teams were ranked as of last week (including 2 in the top 5) and they will probably send somewhere between 10 and 12 teams to the NCAA tournament.

I don’t think you will ever see a post season tournament quite like this year’s Big East bash in NYC:

The first round games involved a #9 seed (UCONN) that is currently ranked #19 in the nation (and in the quarter finals), a #10 seed (Villanova) that was ranked in the top 10 in the nation just a few weeks ago (but got bounced by the second worst team in the conference) and a #11 seed (Marquette) that is ranked just outside the top 25 (and also in the quarter finals after dumping the #6 seed).

Could this be the best season that a single conference has ever collectively had? I can’t think of a better one.

Boy do I miss Big East hoops.

It’s No Longer An Elephant

by A.J. Coltrane

UW Washington guard Venoy Overton has been suspended for the duration of the Pac-10 tournament as a result of criminal charges:

The gross-misdemeanor charge against Overton stems from a Jan. 8 incident in which Seattle police say he met with two 16-year-old girls and took them to his sister’s apartment in South Seattle. A police report says Overton, 22, furnished the girls with alcohol and engaged in sex acts with both.

Doesn’t the “Pac-10” tournament seem just a little too convenient? It may only be one game if the Huskies lose to the Cougars in the first round. The Huskies currently are slated in the NCAA tournament as about a 9-seed. If they lose tomorrow to the Cougars it probably drops them to about a 10-seed. If the Huskies were to somehow get past (hypothetically) the WSU game, then UCLA, then Arizona… they’d be about a 7 or an 8 seed.

What difference does that make, really?

Huskies as a 10 seed would face UConn, West Virginia, or Georgetown.

Huskies as a 9 seed would face Texas A&M, Kansas St., Xavier, or Vanderbilt.

Huskies as a 7 or 8 seed would face somebody along the lines of Cincinnati, Villanova, Temple, UNLV, or Missouri.

That’s all about a wash.

If the Huskies had suspended Overton for say, 3 games, then it might have involved some of the NCAA tournament. The problem with that approach is that they’d be penalizing the other players for Overton’s [lack of common sense, lack of judgement, stupidity, what do you call that(?)]

The point is, anything less than a supension for the remainder of the season doesn’t really impact their chances of advancing in the NCAA tournament. The suspension the Huskies selected doesn’t really do squat.

Make of this what you will: I was in a adult beverage establishment today and I was told (by someone I believe) that Overton had been there shortly before the original charges were filed .. with two underage girls. They sat in a corner and tried to get served, but when they got carded – and the girls were found to be minors, they were all asked to leave.

I’m not entirely sure it’s appropriate to post that “rumor”, but I can say that I absolutely believe that the person who told me that story wasn’t making it up, and if I were to ask around a little more I could get other people to corroborate it.

Ick.

Paying Off the Safeco Field Debt

By Blaidd Drwg

Will someone please explain this to me – The Kingdome, which cost $67 million to build originally and another $51 million to fix when the roof fell in, and was blown up in 2000, won’t be paid off until sometime in the second half of this decade. Safeco Field, which cost $340 million in public funds to build, will be paid off by the end of this year. Did the state ever think that refinancing those bonds from the Kingdome might be a good idea?

Things that make you go BOOM!

The BYU Honor Code

By Blaidd Drwg

As you know, The #3 Ranked BYU Cougars Men’s Basketball team probably cost themselves a legitimate shot at hanging around deep into the NCAA tournament when they kicked Brandon Davies off the team for having pre-marital sex with his girlfriend, which happens to be a violation of the school’s honor code. There was an article posted on ESPN that listed the rules for the honor code. They are:

BYU has had a strict policy of enforcing the honor code. This past football season, running back Harvey Unga was suspended for a violation of the honor code. The BYU honor code statement, from the BYU undergraduate handbook, consists of:

• Be honest
• Live a chaste and virtuous life
• Obey the law and all campus policies
• Use clean language
• Respect others
• Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee and substance abuse
• Participate regularly in church services
• Observe the Dress and Grooming Standards
• Encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code

My question – how the hell did Jim McMahon manage to not get himself kicked out of BYU? You can’t tell me that he didn’t violate at least one of these in his time in Salt Lake City. If he managed to remain in compliance, I bet he went on one epic bender after his BYU football career was done.

The Huskies Achillies

by A.J. Coltrane

The WSU Men’s Basketball team defeated UW last night, 80-69. WSU led by as much as 21 before the Huskies pulled to within 6 points with 4:04 to go. Had the Cougars played with better fundamentals late in the second half the score would have never would have gotten that close.

I think the Cougars may have “exposed” the Huskies somewhat.

UW’s 6’3″ guard Abdul Gaddy is out for the year with an ACL injury, suffered in early January. He had been playing 23 minutes per night, averaging 8.5 points and 3.8 assists.

Last night the Huskies distributed the guard minutes as follows: 5’9″ Isaiah Thomas, 35 minutes; 6’0″ Venoy Overton, 26 minutes; 6’5″ C.J. Wilcox, 19 minutes; 6’6″ Terrence Ross, 13 minutes. The two tall guards are both freshmen — they combined to go 1 of 11 from the floor. As for the short guards: 5’9″ and 6’0″ are both generous height estimates. I’d guess they’re really closer to 5’7″ and 5’10”.

The Huskies have been successful this season using their small guards to penetrate and either dish or score.

Here’s the Huskies Achillies Heel:

The Cougar guards measured 6’1″, 6’4″, 6’4″, and 6’6″.

The Cougars played a 2-3 zone defense, packing their defenders into the paint. Their guards played an extra half-step off of UW’s quick little guards. This made it very difficult for the UW guards to penetrate, and if they attempted a 3-pointer the Cougs were able to use their relative size advantage to challenge the perimeter shots. The Huskies went 1-13 on 3-pointers in the first half — they didn’t shoot well from anywhere all night: 8-27 from 3, 15-24 from the line, and 33% overall from the floor.

If history repeats itself in the NCAA Tournament, the Huskies are going home.

Is Carmelo The Man?

by A.J. Coltrane

Joe Posnanski hits the essence of the Carmelo Anthony trade on the head:

Many people are asking whether the Knicks made a good trade for Carmelo Anthony. It’s an interesting question, but I think there’s a related question that’s more interesting. I don’t think it matters too much what good players the Knicks gave up for Anthony. I think only one thing matters, and it is this:

Is Carmelo Anthony a franchise player?

….And so we come back to the question that interests me: Is Carmelo Anthony an all-time great player, the kind of player who could lead a team to a championship, be their best player, be their star? If he is that kind of player, then it doesn’t really matter what the Knicks gave up for him, because he was worth it. If he’s not that kind of player, then it doesn’t really matter what the Knicks gave up for him, because the Knicks are likely to get stuck in a cycle that will make it very unlikely for them to win a championship anytime soon…

I’m very firmly of the opinion that Carmelo is not “The Man”. I started to write a post about how Carmelo = Allen Iverson.. a very very good (and overrated) player who wasn’t quite good enough to get the 76ers a championship.

Then I was listening to Mike and Mike a couple of days ago. They brought up an interesting stat: there have only been two players traded during a season while having a higher scoring average than Carmelo- Wilt Chamberlain and Bob McAdoo. I was thinking “Wow, McAdoo is another excellent comp.” McAdoo was a great, physical scorer who played somewhat indifferent defense. McAdoo eventually won championships as the 6th man for the Showtime Lakers, but prior to that his career was kind of a disappointment due to a lack of having “won the big one.”

The third player I’m inclined to compare Carmelo to, and this is damning him with faint praise, is Antoine Walker. Antoine Walker wasn’t as good as Carmelo, though his reputation was similar. They both dribble too much, neither is(was) much of a rebounder or really much interested in sharing the ball or playing defense.

The fourth comp, and the first one I thought of, is Patrick Ewing. Great player, just not quite great enough.

What it comes down to is that Carmelo has one outstanding skill. He’s pretty mediocre at everything else. Both he and Amare are basically one-dimensional scorers.

I don’t think that will do it.

Strat-O-Matic

by A.J. Coltrane

Fun piece about the history of Strat-O-Matic here.

My 1979 math teacher introduced our class to Strat-O-Matic, I think using the flimsy math underpinnings of the game as justification.

Dave Krieg Strat O Matic — If only Griese had *this* good of a season!

My 1979 Strat-O-Matic football team:

Quarterback- Bob Griese

Running Back- Archie Griffin

Full Back- Horace King

Tight End- Henry Childs

Split End- Alfred Jenkins

Flanker- Lynn Swann (or maybe he was the Split End, and Jenkins was the Flanker)

Special Teams- Raiders (Featuring Ray Guy)

Defense- Patriots

The teacher suggested we draft a quarterback first, followed by defense. I went along with the suggestion, as I think most of the kids did. Drafting at the end of the first round left me a 34 year-old Bob Griese at quarterback. I then drafted the defense — New England was absolutely league average, but was the best available. I then drafted all of my pass-catchers, followed by snapping up punter extraordinaire Ray Guy.

Q: What was I missing? A: Any semblance of a running game. Archie Griffin was a two-time Heisman trophy winner who never exceeded 700 yards in his seven year pro career. This was a bad thing, since a big part of Strat-O-Matic football was (and is) correctly guessing whether your opponent intends to run or pass on the next play.

For my passing game though — I had a decrepit dink and dunk quarterback throwing to a trio of deep threat wide receivers:

Lynn Swann: 19.7 yards per catch, good for 4th in the NFL.

Alfred Jenkins: 17.2 yards per catch. (20th)

Henry Childs: 16.6 yards per catch. (As a Tight End(!), 27th in the league.)

Swann was a couple of years removed from the Pro Bowl. Jenkins would be a Pro Bowler the following two seasons. It was Childs’ lone Pro Bowl season.

What’d all that add up to? Old QB + No RBs + Great WRs + Average Defense = a 5-4-1 record. I made it into the playoffs as a Wild Card and lost in the NFC Championship game by throwing the ball all over the place.

My buddy won the league in part because he had the Steel Curtain defense and an actual running game. It didn’t hurt that I traded (read: gave) him Lynn Swann right before the Super Bowl — I’d just used Swann to terrorize his opponent in the previous game, I’d gotten behind early and spent most of the game throwing bombs to Swann.

The cool part was that the teacher gave my buddy the cards after the season, as a prize for winning the Super Bowl. Good times.

The Dream Shake

by A.J. Coltrane

I was watching the Orlando-Boston game before the Super Bowl this past weekend. Dwight Howard got the ball on the low block and put together a series of spin moves and scored.

My reaction: “That’s the Dream Shake!”

Hakeem Olajuwon has been working with big men since 2006, including Kobe Bryant, Rashard Lewis, Yao Ming, and Dwight Howard. Check out #1 on the highlight reel for a great example of the “Dream Shake.”

I thought two things are interesting from Hakeem’s wikipedia entry:

If I had to pick a center [for an all-time best team], I would take Olajuwon. That leaves out Shaq, Patrick Ewing. It leaves out Wilt Chamberlain. It leaves out a lot of people. And the reason I would take Olajuwon is very simple: he is so versatile because of what he can give you from that position. It’s not just his scoring, not just his rebounding or not just his blocked shots. People don’t realize he was in the top seven in steals. He always made great decisions on the court. For all facets of the game, I have to give it to him.

—Michael Jordan

And

More recently he has been working with Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, helping him diversify his post moves and encouraging more mental focus.

I thought that was interesting… “more mental focus.” That sums up Howard’s main weakness pretty well — he doesn’t always appear to be thinking when he’s on the court. (That, and his offensive repertoire has been limited to dunks.)

If he ever does figure it out though — look out.

Super Blowouts

by A.J. Coltrane

Maybe they’re not all blowouts, at least not lately. Left axis is the percentage of each victory margin, bottom axis is decade :

There were five blowouts in a row in the 80’s, and three out of four Superbowls of the 1960’s were blowouts too.

It was this column that got me thinking about Super Bowl victory margins, including this table:

Location	G	Winner	Loser	Total Points
Indoors	13	30.5	15.8	46.23
Outdoors	31	30	15.3	45.26