Husky Men's Basketball Blog

The key for the Huskies tomorrow will be solving Arizona State's matchup zone defense.

The Huskies did it well enough to beat the Sun Devils twice this season, but both games were a struggle.

The Huskies won 64-53 at home and 66-61 in Tempe, shooting a combined 44.7 percent overall and 11-28 from the three-point line

UW coaches and players say solving the zone is difficult because it's not something they see a lot --- most Pac-10 teams play man-to-man most of the time.

"They probably played (zone) 99 percent of the time, so you do something long enough, you get really good at it and confident at it and that's where they are now,'' said UW coach Lorenzo Romar.

ASU also changes it up. In the second game in Tempe, after UW busted out to a 44-21 halftime lead, the Sun Devils changed up its zone, extending the defense on the perimeter.

"They came out on us and pressured us,'' Romar said.

The Huskies wilted a bit, and then Romar said the team grew tight. "I think we got tentative thinking 'oh no, another game on the road.' Those thoughts started creeping in and I just think we became totally passive.''

ASU cut the lead to three before UW rallied to hold on.

Interestingly, ASU coach Herb Sendek played almost all man-to-man while coach at NC State, where he faced Romar and the Huskies twice. But he went with the zone this year, saying Tuesday that he felt it gave his team the best chance to win with the personnel it has.

ASU point guard Derek Glasser said this week the Sun Devils got more accustomed to playing the zone as the year went on.

Glasser said one thing that could actually be good news for the Huskies --- that the zone tended to work best on the second game of weekend trips or homestands, since that team usually only had a day to prepare. Indeed, the Huskies tore apart ASU's zone in the first half in Tempe, a Thursday game when it had all week to prepare for the zone.

ASU's stats back up Glasser's statement. On six of the eight conference weekends when ASU played two games, the second opponent scored fewer points than the first. That includes last weekend when Stanford beat ASU 63-53 on Thursday before ASU rebounded to win at Cal 42-41 on Saturday.

Another example were the visits by UW and WSU. The Huskies beat ASU 66-61 before WSU came to Tempe two days later and won 48-47.

There were a couple questions thrown my way I'll try to answer here:

--- Can Ryan Appleby break the career three-point record at UW? Sure. Appleby has 149 in his career, including 79 this season, which is just two off the single-season mark set by Tre Simmons in 2005. The all-time leader is Deon Luton with 212, so a normal Appleby season would break it.

--- Who was Lorenzo Romar looking at the other night when he was at the Class 4A State Title game? Probably DeAngelo Casto. Coaches can't talk about that on the record, but I'm sure he was giving him a look, as well as some others just to make sure.

--- What's UW's bracket for the Pac-10 Tournament? UW's first game is Wednesday night against Arizona State. Win that, and then it's WSU in the quarterfinals Thursday night at 8:50 p.m. The winner of that game will get either USC or Stanford in the semifinals.

Quincy Pondexter said Monday he'll almost certainly be back as a Husky next season rather than considering applying for the NBA, something I wrote about in this story here today.

I realize completely it seems a little strange for a freshman averaging 10.7 points a game to even be considering the NBA, and I don't think there was ever much chance of it happening.

But Pondexter had left the door open for that a few weeks ago when he told several of us that he would "re-evaluate'' his situation at the end of the season. Here's that story.

To be frank, I thought that story was more interesting as a peek into his mindset than it was as breaking news, since I think few thought it realistic he would really opt for the NBA after this season.

I think the new story is interesting for the same reasons --- he now seems full steam ahead on thinking only about the Huskies next year and not anything else. At the time he told he would think about the NBA, he had just returned to the starting lineup after sitting for nine games. Now, he's started the last eight games and seems to have a more clearly defined role on the team. That may all just be a coincidence. But as Pondexter himself said Monday, he feels he's "settling in'' now.

Also today was this story on the All-Pac-10 honors and Jerry Brewer's column on how Lorenzo Romar and Cameron Dollar led a Saint Louis team in a similar position as this year's Huskies to victory in the Conference USA Tournament in 2000.

Here, also, are the weekly Pac-10 notes from the Eugene Register-Guard, with an interesting look at Stanford's NCAA hopes, as well as some info on the Huskies.

Here's an LA Times story on Will Conroy being released by the Clippers.