Husky Men's Basketball Blog

It's been a long day traveling and a long night here at the arena, and I have to head to the hotel soon, so I won't have a long post right now.

But much of the talk afterward was of the time out with 7:46 left and ASU ahead 45-41 when Lorenzo Romar threw a clipboard on a seat and lit into his team.

Romar said he did it because the team didn't seem to have a lot of energy "and this was not the time to not have a whole lot of energy.''

Duly inspired, UW finished the game on an 18-6 run to hold on to beat ASU 59-51.

It was a statistically sloppy game, but most games involving ASU this season have been --- UW shot just 38.5 percent but held ASU to 40.4 and controlled the boards (39-28).

I thought Justin Dentmon's play was huge as he had 13 points and three assists and two turnovers in 32 minutes. He has had just four turnovers in the last three games.

Now come the Cougars, and we'll try to break down that game more tomorrow.

The Huskies, though, pronounced themselves ready.

"I can't wait,'' said center Spencer Hawes. "They've beaten us four in a row. It's time to put an end to that.''

And no, Tim Morris did not play. For whatever reason, a lot of the national internet sites often insert players on the roster but not in uniform into the game. Morris won't play this year.

That might have seemed harder than it needed to be at times, but the Huskies got it done and now can begin thinking about another crack at the Cougs.

We'll have more later.

We wondered what we'd see on a neutral court from the Huskies. We're getting our answer --- a few minutes of bad followed by a few minutes of good, and then repeat, which seems fitting of a setting that is neither home, nor road.

ASU seemed to have all the momentum with that 45-41 lead, but the Appleby three and the Pondexter dunk had the Huskies hopping to their sideline.

One thing to keep in mind --- UW hasn't won a game by fewer than five points all season while losing three by four or fewer. So are the odds in UW's favor to finally win a close one? Or will they again wilt at the end?

A few interesting halftime numbers:

--- Jon Brockman is 4-9 from both the field and the free throw line, leading the Huskies with 12 points and eight rebounds.

--- The technical on Quincy Pondexter is the first against a UW player this season.

--- ASU ended the half 10-27 from the field after starting out 8-13.

--- Justin Dentmon has six points and one turnover and now has just three turnovers in his last two-and-a-half games.

That's a 22-3 run as Justin Dentmon sinks a three-pointer and the Huskies have regained control as halftime nears.

A good 10 minutes is outweighing a bad 10 for the Huskies so far.

Instead of picking up where they left off against UCLA, the Huskies look like they are reprising the poor efforts against the likes of Oregon State and Cal.

UW is 4-10 with five turnovers while allowing an ASU team not known for its offense to make eight of its first 13 shots.

And there's very little energy here, and what noise there is seems to be coming from those rooting for the underdog. UW has a lot of work to do.

You'll see many of the Huskies wearing purple shoes tonight. They are a new brand of Nike shoes in school colors that many of the teams will be wearing here this week --- obviously in their own colors.

The Cal-OSU game was a real snoozer --- a 70-51 win for the Bears --- and did nothing to advance the theory that adding all 10 teams a year ago was a good thing.

But at least it didn't take too long and the UW-Arizona State game should begin at its scheduled 8:42 tip time.

Have finally arrived and ready for a night of basketball --- even if Oregon State isn't.

How the Huskies lost to them two weeks ago remains as big a quandary as the football team's loss to Stanford --- each could be the ultimate decider on a post-season berth.

As for UW, the team practiced at UCLA today then headed back to the hotel and is now at the arena.

More later.

About to head to the airport for the trip to Los Angeles, so the next post from me probably won't come until I'm at Staples later this afternoon.

We'll plan to post often once we are there, however, throughout the tournament.

In the meantime, here are a few more stories around the conference.

First, here's a good overview of Arizona State's situation heading into the tournament from the Arizona Republic. Interesting note in there on some parallels between this ASU team and Herb Sendek's 1997 NC State team and the ACC Tournament run it made as a No. 8 seed.

Here's a story from the East Valley Tribune making some of the same comparisons.

Here's a good overview of the whole tournament from the LA Times.

Here's a column on Pac-10 coaches again feeling a little disrespected from Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Daily News.

Finally, here's an overview of the tournament from Jake Curtis of the San Francisco Chronicle headlined "Huskies are Pac-10 dark horse.'' We'll start to see how much gallop there is in that horse tonight.

I'll pass along our Pac-10 Tournament preview, which ran in the paper today.

First, this feature on Jon Brockman, and then this overall look at the entire tournament. Also, here's a look at six other teams that have gone 4-0 to win conference tournaments.

Looking elsewhere, here's a good read from the Oakland Tribune, the paper's sixth annual poll of writers who cover the Pac-10 Conference. The writers named Ryan Anderson as freshman of the year, differing from the coaches who named Chase Budinger, but sided with the coaches in selections of Arron Afflalo as Player of the Year and Tony Bennett as Coach of the Year. There are lots of other interesting categories as well, however, so make sure to read it.