Husky Men's Basketball Blog

UW coach Lorenzo Romar met the media today and said the lineup is still unsettled for Saturday's game against Portland.

"There's a couple of spots that anyone could contend for,'' he said.

Jon Brockman is set as one starter, and it's possible Ryan Appleby goes back in the lineup, as well --- he was pegged to be a starter before injuring his thumb. Venoy Overton has also started all eight games this season.

But other than Brockman, the lineup seems in flux with Romar saying he wants to use the rest of the non-conference schedule to settle on a lineup and rotation heading into Pac-10 play.

As he did last week, Romar said he will decide the lineup for Saturday based on defensive effort in practice.

"Guys that come in and show a commitment to doing things that we want to do get the minutes,'' Romar said. "That hasn't changed. We've placed more emphasis on it (this year) but that has been the issue the entire time.''

Romar said the team won't change lineups as much once Pac-10 play starts so he hopes it begins to congeal a bit now.

UW has used three different starting lineups going 3-1 with the lineup of Brockman, Quincy Pondexter, Joel Smith, Overton and Justin Dentmon; 1-2 with Brockman, Pondexter, Matthew Bryan-Amaning, Overton and Dentmon; and 0-1 (against Pitt) with Brockman, Joe Wolfinger, Smith, Overton and Tim Morris.

That means eight of the 11 players on the current roster have started at least once this season. UW used seven different lineups last season but that includes the Senior Day lineup and two others that were the result of injuries to Spencer Hawes, meaning the Huskies had four different lineups for strictly performance reasons last season.

UW appears to have no health issues heading into Saturday with Appleby continuing to get better and everybody else fine.