Washington tops in state rivals, but still has work to do

By Brice Hamack
Sports Editor

Washington finished the first half of Pac-10 play this past Saturday afternoon at home defeating Washington State 92-64 thanks to the inspired play of senior Quincy Pondexter who finished with 29 points and 12 rebounds.

Washington guard Venoy Overton might not have lit up the scoreboard, but what he did was play very sound defensive basketball. He had seven assists, six rebounds, two steals, and most importantly zero turnovers. He also at one point turned Bank of America Arena into a frenzied mad house after the player guarding him clearly fouled him but no foul was called.

Every Husky on the floor seemed to feel the frustration of the officiating and the play of the Cougars, and proceeded on a fast break score, followed by a big defensive play by Overton. As the arena began to come to its feet and the ground began to shake, Washington State head coach Ken Bone alertly called a timeout to let the emotion run out of the building a bit, however it turned out to be too little too late.

The game was the definition of a tale of two halves. The Cougars managed to head into break with a 40-36 lead, and several times during the first half of play felt it necessary to pop their jerseys at the Washington bench and student section. While Washington State’s cockiness might have earned them the halftime lead, it also earned them a motivated and fired up second half Washington squad.

“They were cocky, in our house, popping their jerseys, we couldn’t let that happen, we had to get after it,” said Overton of the first 20 minutes.

The Huskies did just that, coming out in the second half and putting the Cougars in their place. Junior Justin Holiday stepped it up in the paint and grabbed defensive rebound after defensive rebound, allowing the Husky offense to burst out and run down the court.

“He just got after it. He just got after it. He wouldn’t be denied,” head coach Lorenzo Romar said of Holiday.

Scott Suggs came off the bench and drilled a couple of three-pointers, Isaiah Thomas went on a three-point spree of his own, and Matthew Bryan-Amaning had a monster slam dunk that not only brought the house down, but also forced Bone to use another time out.

“You could tell, because they would say things,” Pondexter said when asked about the Cougars being shaken up. “When we play great defense, it leads to a lot of great things on offense. It leads to transition; it leads to wearing the other team down. We just got back to playing nitty, gritty, Husky basketball.”

Nitty gritty Husky basketball is what this team is going to need if they want to sneak into the NCAA Tournament this year after a disappointing 4-5 start in Pac-10 play. As I mentioned in my pre-season outlook, if this group is going to succeed, they need to learn to play as a team. Head coach Lorenzo Romar has never had a team full of so much individual talent before. It’s one thing to have the talented players; it’s another to get them to play together as a cohesive talented unit.

The players seem to be able to achieve this at home when they are able to feed off the emotions of playing on their home court in front of their hometown fans. However on the road the Huskies still have major issues in finding the fuel to light this fire.

Washington hosts Arizona and Arizona State this week at Bank of America Arena (7:30pm on Thursday and Saturday nights respectively). When the Huskies played these teams on the road several weeks ago they had some of their poorest outings of the year, hopefully some big wins at home help to fire them up for an inspired second half run at the conference.

Notes:

- The last two dominating victories for the Huskies (28 points over WSU, and a 47 point yawner against Seattle University), Romar hosted his last two assistant coaches who have gone on to current head coaching gigs (Ken Bone and Cameron Dollar), and proved that he is still the top Dawg in the state.