yea! 206er loves when seatown gets respect. go dawgs!

GO DAWGS!

I'm really getting excited for this year!

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?id=3457816

great stuff bob. I feel the need to remind you that this type of info is appreciated. It's really fun.

The dawgs will be good and compete this year I really believe.

FT shooting, especially FT deep in games I think will make the difference between being middle of the road pac 10 team and one of the 2 or 3 elite teames. That and QPON are LARGE factors.

I feel that with Brockman and solid talent we won't dip below average. Any body else got an opinion on what will take this team from middle of the road to a contender in PAC 10 play?

For Huskies to compete they have to generate more open shots and hit more of those. Offensively last season too many possessions came down to guys going one-on-one ineffectively and forcing up a poor shot…and too often when they did make a good pass to the open man, he missed the shot.

The FT’s are important, but that didn’t keep Memphis from making it to the championship last year or Ohio State and Florida two years ago. They were all poor FT shooting teams, but they found a way to develop good shots offensively. Huskies did poorly in both categories last season.

Defensively Huskies allowed teams to hit too many wide open jumpers because too many guys played too soft away from the ball or lost their man altogether. Too often there was someone open and good teams were able to find that man. Even in that blowout against Oregon State it was horrifying how many open jumpers they had, fortunately they just could hit any.

P.S. Sorry for the above post with that link Bob had already given. I just pulled an Uggla there.

"that UW should be slotted in the next group with Arizona and USC."

I sure hope so!

MT I would be curious what your analysis would be after you looked at the Huskies stats vs the rest of the Pac-10.

UW allowed teams to shoot 45%, 9th in the Pac-10.

Offensively they shot 45%, 8th in the Pac-10.

They allowed teams to shoot 37% from the 3-point line, 10th in the Pac-10.

They shot 35% form the 3 point line, 8th in the Pac-10.

Am I missing something?

I don't mean that sarcastically, seriously? Do you disagree with my assessment?

interesting points, MT Husky, on the Memphis, Ohio State and Floridas FT shooting. And i tend to agree although i don't know if the huskies have the raw talent to make FT shooting a moot point.

I think solid FT shooting will HAVE to be a component in their success. I would venture to say if brock man hits 65% of his freethrows that he will be POY.

The off ball defense or just defense was pretty poor last year, especially early on in the season. That has been noted a couple different times. I don't see that being as big of an issue this year an older squad.

I agree on all counts Bellingham.

FT's are important, my point was there has been so much focus on it that I think it is more important Huskies learn to play better defense and take better shots. It seems to me the FT's almost became an excuse where even if they had shot a better % there were other serious issues that hurt them last season.

I also agree that I think Huskies will improve in both those areas this coming season...but if they don't...

Yep, I can see that also..... it was just sooooo bad:)

Key to the Huskies this year is sneaking in to a couple of arenas and generating some w's. A few wins and we will be in the running as we will be quite tough at Hec ed.

Well Husky Key that used to be the case. Even 2 years ago (2006-2007) with a losing record the Huskys did really well at BAA. But last year some cracks appeared. They lost to Arizona State, Washington State, USC, Stanford and Cal (and of course Pitt) at home. That made a 4-5 home record in PAC 10 play. Hardly adequate. If they hadn't won 3 road games they would have finished 9th. Much improvement need at home.

There was another "story" on ESPN.com, or I guess more of an interactive map, that included the six best players to form a team made from the top eight hoops hotbeds. It included Seattle, LA, NYC, Philly, ATL, Chicago, Baltimore/DC and Houston. The players had to have graduated high school in the last 10 years. I think the Seattle team was Hawes, Marvin Williams, Jamal Crawford, Martell Webster, Roy and Nate Robinson.

Here's the link... http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/features/cityhigh