"GregBiggins Greg Biggins Puyallup (Wash) OL Josh Garnett said he's down to a final 3- #Stanford, #NotreDame and #Michigan"

Looks like Josh Garnett will not be a Dawg. Hard to believe that he would not put the Dawgs in his top 3. This to me makes it easier to accept as it really says that UW never had a shot at this kid. If someone wants to get away for school then it is hard to fault them for it especially if you have the chance to end up with a degree from Stanford. Hard to fault the coaches either if a kid has his mind set on something not like they could change that either. Just one of those recruits that did not want to come to UW. Go get Banner Brosek and a stud from Cali and we will be more then okay. Still a big loss.

I have always wondered if the start time of Husky games really effects the amount of Husky fans that will show up to the games. After a comment that John made in which he thought that the night game hurts the chance for a sell out and that if it was earlier in the day there would be a better chance for a sell out. I personally think that 4pm games are ideal and expected that to have the highest attendance when I broke down the numbers. 

I looked through the UW media guide and ESPN.com to find the figures as well as the start time. I grouped them into 3 categories. I took numbers for 2.5 seasons (Each game Sarkisian has been the head coach) Figured the Tyrone years might be a little skewed. 

12:30pm = afternoon game times

3:30-5:00pm = evening games times 

7:00-7:30pm = night games. 

Another factor is the quality of opponent compared to game time. Not much you can do about this but as you will see, each category had a marquee matchup, LSU 2009 (night), Nebraska 2010 (afternoon), WSU 2009 or Stanford 2010 (afternoon) as well as each category had a not so quality draw. EWU 2011 (evening), Idaho 2010 (afternoon), and Arizona 2011 (evening). 

See my results after the jump....

<!--StartFragment-->

2011

EWU- 58,088 4pm

Hawaii- 63,252 12:30pm

CAL- 60,437 12:30

Colorado- 62,147 12:30

Arizona- 59,825 7:30pm

 

2010

Syracuse- 62418  4pm

Nebraska- 72876  12:30pm

ASU- 65685  7pm

OSU- 65235  7pm

Stanford- 69,020 4pm

UCLA- 62347 5pm

 

2009

LSU- 69,161 7:30pm

Idaho- 58,980 12:30pm

USC- 61,889 12:30pm

UA- 61,621 7pm

UO- 67,809 12:30pm

WSU- 68,697 3:30pm

CAL- 62,334 3:30pm

 

 

Results

12:30pm Game Times

63,912.9 (447,390/7)

 

3:30 to 5:00pm Game Times

63,815.2 people (382,891/6)

 

7:00pm to 7:30pm Game Times

64,305.4 (321,527/5)

 

As you can see, while all are very close together, it seems that people show up a little bit more to night games than they do to either of the other two options. All are within 1000 people on average but I did find it interesting that the late games had the highest average attendance over the last 2.5 seasons. 

I know that their are many variables that can affect this but I think it can at least be an argument that game time really does not matter for actual attendance. People may prefer earlier or later games but that is personal preference. If I could choose an ideal schedule I would have 12:30 and 4pm games in September when it is warm out. But once Middle of October hits I love the night games and think that it feels like football weather. 

Interested to hear your thoughts. My very basic break down seems to indicate that if the Oregon game does not sell out it is not because of the late night start.

<!--EndFragment-->

This husky team has a lot to improve on if they do not want to embarrass themselves the rest of this season. They are not consistent, they do not have that us against the world mentality like previous dawgs team had and they still have not found their identity yet. I am going to give my thoughts on the players and what I think we need to do to get better. 

IT- He played so well for us but he has regressed these past two games as other teams have focused on him. He is playing a little IT freshman year and needs to go back to the IT of the past 5 games. You really see him struggle when the other team has big guards on him. I think him and Venoy cannot be on the floor at the same time when teams play zone. It should be an either or but not both because neither shoot the 3 well and when you have both of them in against the zone they cannot play the ball over the zone because they are not tall enough. Tonight I would have gone with more Venoy and less IT as VO was more effective in my opinion. 

VO- I thought took a step forward this game but still does stupid things out of no where. Ex. throwing the ball out of bounds when he was not on the same page as Holiday. We need the Venoy who slashes dishes and plays solid. Going off the IT comment, VO and IT both need the ball in their hands to be most effective and that is another reason that they should not be in the game at the same time. They are much more efficient when they can drive and dish to ROss Wilcox or Suggs. 

MBA- Needs to get up for every game. It seems like unless he gets off to a hot start he will not be effective during the game. He still lacks that killer attitude that is needed to be a D 1 big man. He also misses to many easy shots around the pant. When teams play zone, he needs to man the paint and make it so the d has to collapse on him so that our shooters will be open to drain the 3 ball. He has been solid but could still improve.

Ross- You can tell he is a freshman, but he is still the best talent on our team. If we can get him to play defense and only take open shots he will do great. It would also be great to see him use the pump fake and take it to the hole some more. He was rebounding the ball pretty well tonight though.

Holiday- He has regressed as the season has gone on. To me it seems like the more he worries about improving  his offensive game the worse his defense gets. I think he needs to go back to his bread and butter and play solid defense and not worry so much about offense. We have so many weapons but we lack that solid defense from him that we enjoyed last year. 

Suggs- Has improved and looks much more comfortable in the starting line up. With Wilcox struggling we are depending on him way to much for the 3 ball. He will hit his percentage and that is all you can ask for him. I like how he is shooting off the dribble and using his mid range game. I would love to see him as well drive to the hole more though. 

Wilcox- Just is not the same player as he was at the beginning of the year. Could be a mixture of injury and being a freshman but he is struggling plain and simple. We need him to take the pressure off of Suggs because I would love to see a line up of VO Suggs Holiday Wilcox and MBA. But Romar cannot use that because he is struggling .

Gant- He might be the team MVP during the Pac Ten season. I know he does not put up the big numbers but he does everything that you need from someone. He has a nice jumper, plays solid d, and just does everything and anything you need on the court. He still needs to work on his rebounding but he has gotten better the last 5 games.

Aziz- I know he is coming off a torn ACL and he is still very raw at basketball but he needs to go to the end of the rotation IMHO. Does anyone else notice when he plays defense that he slumps over and instead of being a 7 feet tall he drops to being probably 6-6. It needs to learn that to be an effective presence in the post that he needs to look 7 feet tall. Also he has not been blocking shots, he looks lost on the floor, no offensive moves, and cannot shoot free throws consitently, I like the guy and think he will be great by the time he leaves UW but we cannot afford right now to have him learn how to play D-1 basketball during Pac Ten season. In the right match up he will thrive but not every game is going to be the right match up. I would give Gant or Ross his starting position depending on the team. 

Romar- He needs to step up his game and change some things up to send a message to his team. If IT is turning the ball over by playing out of control he needs to sit on the bench. I would like to see a line up change first of all. Below is my idea of how the starting 5 should be put together.

IT or Venoy

Ross or Wilcox or Gant depending on match up

Suggs

Holiday

MBA

Romar needs to let his scorers score and his defense players worry about that. Allow Holiday to only worry about shutting down the other teams best player. I would also like to see them full court press a lot more. They have the length, quickness, and depth to press or at least put full court pressure on. They need some spark from the coaches to light some fire in these players. Losing to OSU is not acceptable. 

So far all I have heard for the most part is how close of a game that this is going to be and how many Huskies are worried about this game. Let me share a few reasons as to why I am not worried about this game and why I think we will win by about 17 points or so. 

We are the Huskies and they are the Cougs!!! 

We have Chris Polk and Jesse Callier who average 5.35 yards a carry to Montgomery and Mitz who avg only 3.55 yards a carry.

 

We have Locker they play with a Tool!!

We have Kearse, Goodwin, Aguliar, Brins, and Johnson they have Wilson and Karsetter.

We have a defense that has played well against crappy teams. WSU is a very crappy team. 

WSU defense cannot even stop crappy defenses. 

They think the snow is going to help them!! They give up over 200 yards a game and can only average 89 yards a game on offense! 

THey got one win against OSU because OSU was looking ahead to USC. Who could blame them.

They have punted the ball 77 times this year!! 7 times a game! and only averages 35 yards a punt compared to 43 yards for us!

Tool has thrown 11 INT's thats 1 per game.

Chris Polk alone has more rushing yards than the entire coug team!!

Eric Folk and Rasp may be the key to this game. I am calling for us to win by 17 points but these two guys are going to help lead us to that victory! We dominate in these areas. Also Polk and Callier will dominate. We will win the time of TOP with our running game and the lack of a cougar defense. Locker will not even have to have an all star game to make the Huskies win easily. If he  only manages the game we win by 10. If he plays good we win by 17. If he plays out of his mind we win by over 21.

 

The cougs are getting talked up by everyone to upset the dogs or at least make it close. It reminds me of March Madness when everyone was picking Utah St. to beat the Huskies in the first round cause they were a 5 seed and everyone loves the 12-5 upset and because we are from the NW that was the easy choice. The dawgs won by 15 but I clearly remember that it was never a game. That is like this.. People are forcing this to be a close game when everything points to a double digit win by the Huskies. I say 27-10 Dawgs