Husky Men's Basketball Blog

So where's all this parity in college basketball, anyway?

Sitting here watching another rout --- true, this one's expected with UCLA up 18 on Weber State at half --- has me thinking this is one of the least exciting openings to an NCAA Tournament I can remember.

Eight games are over, with the higher seed winning every one, all by at least nine points, and by an average of 17.7.

What I figure it means here is that we are in for a real thriller with Gonzaga and Indiana. Rarely seen four straight double-digit games in one day at one regional.

Here's a fun fact for you as you watch UCLA and Weber State --- this is a matchup of two teams that lost by a combined 39 points in Seattle this season.

The Huskies beat Weber State 80-51 on Dec. 22 in the wake of the win over LSU, and defeated UCLA 61-51 just 12 days ago in what was the highlight of UW's season.

To answer one question that has arisen here regarding the Huskies:

--- I think Tim Morris can have a great impact next year, especially on the defensive end. He played most of three seasons at Stanford so he has a lot of experience, and sitting out a year has allowed him to work on his offense --- the main weakness in his game is shooting --- and refine his defense.

"He'll be able to help us defensively and give us more depth there,'' UW coach Lorenzo Romar said the other day.

Here are Morris' career stats and you can see he struggled from the field his last year at Stanford, particularly the 4-23 from the 3-point line. He's better in transition, however, one reason he wanted to come to UW, which typically runs more than does the Cardinal under Trent Johnson.

Here's a chart I found flipping through the Vanderbilt post-season media guide I thought you might like.

It's a list of the teams with the most regular season wins this year against teams ranked in the AP Top 25.

1, UCLA, 9
2, North Carolina, 7
3, (tie) Vanderbilt, 6
USC, 6
Tennessee, 6
6 (tie) Oregon, 5
Marquette, 5
Washington, 5
Washington State, 5

Maybe the biggest thing to take from this is the strength and parity this season of the Pac-10 since there are five Pac-10 teams on the list.

One up, one down for the Pac-10 now after Washington State's 70-54 win over Oral Roberts in Sacramento.

More than a few national analysts had picked Oral Roberts, which could have been viewed not only as wondering just how good the Cougars really are, bnut also questioning the Pac-10.

One believer now, however, is ORU coach Scott Sutton who said that the Cougars "showed in the second half why they are one of the top 10, 15 teams in America.''

Sutton seemed a little surprised at the way the Cougars dominated late, and said that "the thing we don't see in our league is that kind of size. We haven't seen that since December.''

Louisville is putting it to Stanford, lleading 46-20 at halftime.

So count the Pac-10 as the first conference with a team out of the tournament.

I had promised to provide some commentary on Pac-10 games earlier --- and I had Stanford being drubbed by Louisville in the first round (okay, so maybe I thought Louisville had a chance).

We'll just scratch that one.

The next Pac-10 team in action is Washington State against Oral Roberts, and being down here in Sacramento, there are a lot of different schools of thought on this one.

Oral Roberts certainly passed the eye test during practice yesterday --- Caleb Green and Ken Tutt look like the real deal --- and ORU did win at Kansas this season.

On the other hand, the Golden Eagles also lost 10 games this season and had to scrape and claw to get past Oakland in the Mid-Continent final.

Can a 10-loss MCC team really beat the second-best team in the Pac-10?

Sure, the way the Cougars have played at times lately. WSU has looked a little vulnerable near the end of the season, losing three of their last six. And Oral Roberts is the team that comes into this one with some tournament experience, losing to No. 1 seed Memphis 94-78 last year. Oral Roberts players and coaches played that up yesterday, saying a year ago they were just happy to be here ---- this year, they want to stay a while.

So I expect a tough game for the Cougars today.

But in the end, I don't think ORU is going to show the Cougars anything they haven't seen before --- the Cougs did win 13 Pac-10 games this year.

Call it WSU 67, ORU 59.

For more info on the game, check our preview here.