I've been busy lately, but I've also been voraciously consuming the content from Lookout Landing and Field Gulls, our sister sites for Major League Baseball and the National Football League, respectively. I've mentioned before the difficulty in utilizing statistics for a dynamic sport, such as basketball. In my admittedly limited experience in analysis, tape usually seems to provide a more perfect picture. So, I ask you, the members of the one and only, the fabulous, the magnificent UW Dawg Pound to answer this question for me (and doubt you not, it will certainly influence the way I cover games): are advanced statistics in basketball more so, less so, or equally as valuable as advanced statistics in the other "major" sports in our country?

I'm writing this one on the fly, so excuse any erroneous assumptions made on my part. I didn't figure there was much to say following the California game. The Huskies absolutely exploded. Hell, the game was statistically over with more than 13 minutes remaining in the second half. It helps when you shoot 54.8% from beyond the arc. We had six guys score in double figures, but more importantly, two of those were our freshmen, C.J. Wilcox and Terrence Ross. 

I've said all along that we need a third guy to step up, but what if it's a combination of Wilcox and Ross that steps it up down the stretch? Justin Holiday and Scott Suggs obviously need to produce as starters, but Ross can get to the hoop and Wilcox is a sharp shooter. We get two out of those four working in any game, along with Matthew Bryan-Amaning or Isaiah Thomas (yes, I said "or"), and we have a shot. Now, if it's IT that's on and not MBA, we're going to have to see Aziz N'Diaye play like he did on Thursday; clogging the lane, altering shots and generally just being big.

We lost at Stanford on January 13th, 56-58. We only shot 50% from the line, and turned the ball over on almost a quarter of our possessions, and yet still only lost by a bucket. Three-point shooting was again an issue, We weren't terrible collectively, but nor we hot enough to have put up 26 attempts. No one really got going on offense for us, although no one threw up a stinker. It was our third game without Abdul Gaddy, and Venoy Overton was still getting the start at the second guard position. We'll see if a different starting line up makes a difference tonight. Playing at home sure will.

Both Stanford's team ppg (65.1) and ppg against (62.1) are good for only ninth in the PAC-10 (edit: ninth in this case means second. Oops. See below). In the loss to the Cardinal, we couldn't get it going offensively. After last night, look for that to change (duh). Just pray that Isaiah doesn't think that shooting 75.0% from three-land means he can put it up ten times and hope for the same results. We need to keep the ball moving, and make sure the Cardinal can't get F/C Josh Owens going against Aziz.

Partially out of laziness, partially out of (lack of) time, and partially because the Cardinal doesn't have a single player who's started every game, I'm going to skip the usual projected starters stuff and just say this: get MBA going, get some turnovers and points in transition, and we're looking good going into the key stretch of our season with games at Arizona State (a potential let-down), at Arizona (the importance should be obvious) and "at" Seattle University (another potential let-down). Lorenzo Romar needs to keep his team mentally up and avoiding the silly turnovers we all had that privilege of seeing over that three game stretch.

I'll take a look at both the Cal game and this game in more detail over the week and try to pinpoint what I want Ross and Wilcox to do more and/or less of. In the meantime: WOOF.

(edit: I'm an idiot. I've been reading the statsheet.com rankings backwards for stats against, i.e. tenth means you're best in the league. Never seen it like that. So, I guess disregard everything I've mentioned regarding stats against [thank God I've focused on offense].)

Much has been discussed in this space lately regarding the 2-3 zone. I’ve pointed out some specific ways in which a team can attack it, and much of it involves ball distribution, which has been a problem for our Huskies during this three-game skid. CODawg pointed out to me that I missed one: the transition. I haven’t emphasized defense much here, and in fact pointed out—contrary to what both Lorenzo Romar and Isaiah Thomas said in yesterday’s Seattle Times—that it was the offense that was crippling this team, and that the defense had been merely lax in response to the poor performance at the other end.

Defense is responsible for the transition. Long rebounds, quick outlet passes and lots of running produce transition points. Seeing the transition points is going to be important tonight, as California is averaging 45.1% from the field, which while by no means terrible, should produce enough opportunities for UW to get out and run, which Romar mentioned as a problem during the past couple of weeks.

I wanted to look at more general ways in which UW could attack the zone, particularly in half court offense situations. To do so, I checked out yesterday’s Georgetown @ Syracuse, which the Hoyas won, 64-56. The Syracuse Orange run perhaps the most famous 2-3 in the country, and I wanted to see how another quality offense attacks it.

It’s about the momentum of the play. Hitting the "soft spot" in the paint collapses the zone, and inevitably leaves shooters open. But what if your gunners aren’t hitting? The key is either hitting the high percentage shot in the paint, or dishing out and immediately setting a screen on the elbow or wing, allowing the sharp changes in ball motion to manipulate the defenders out of position. After the jump, a few notes on the California Bears’ particularly brand of zone, what the Huskies need to do (specifically) to beat it, the projected starters, and a few particular things to watch out for.

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Each sport has inherent degrees of transparency. Truly individual sports, like golf, deal simply with the player’s skills and the elements; the fewest variables possible. Tennis is similar, but now you’re dealing with another player and his specific skill set. Rafael Nadal playing Roger Federer is a bit different than Rafael Nadal racking up an hyperbolic stat line against, say, me.

Taking it even further, you look at the traditional American sports. Analysis centers on truth and with each added degree of dynamism that truth becomes a little bit cloudier, a little harder to reach. Baseball is nearly individual; statisticians have learned how to quantify so much of what actually happens, isolating every variable they can in the quest to answer every question there is to be asked about a team, a player, a ballpark, a season. On the other end of the spectrum is football. Each player on the field—regardless of how often they touch the ball—is a cog in a machine, and a backside block that goes completely unnoticed by the scorekeeper can be the difference between a stuff in the backfield and Marshawn Lynch registering on the Richter scale.

In between lays basketball. Yes, we have plenty of discrete stats which can give you a reasonable picture of what a player actually did on the court, but what led to those stats? Who made the entry pass that allowed Aziz N’Diaye to drop the ball off to an open Matthew Bryan-Amaning underneath? I have no earthly idea, and even watching games over and over (which I’ve had the almost opioid-like pleasure of doing with this losing streak) sometimes leaves you wondering. What follows is an attempt at explaining this losing streak and to submit some potential remedies. Make no mistake; every team has bad stretches, and we’re definitely still an NCAA Tournament team. That could change very quickly. Now, make like Mario and JUMP!

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The Dawgs are on a completely unexpected and season-threatening skid. This evening, I'm going to pull an all nighter trying to figure out why.

I'm very interested to hear (outside of this streak coinciding with the beginning of my contributions to this site) your thoughts on the matter. I know several have proffered reasons in comments; I simply have neither the time nor the inclination to filter through all of them. My e-mail is in my profile. Sum up your thoughts, and send 'em to me, along with your handle so I can give credit where credit is due.

I missed a lot of the OU game to a mixture of previous engagements and simple absentmindedness. CODawg has tinkered with the idea that perhaps the zone wasn't to blame this evening. Statsheet doesn't yet have the post game stats up yet, so I haven't had a chance to delve. Thoughts on that would be most welcome, as well.

Before anything, I want to thank John Berkowitz for bestowing upon me an editorship and for allowing me the front page of a site he built from the ground up. This is a great community, and I really am happy to be able to share my humble thoughts with you guys. My thanks, too, to CODawg for his valuable perspective. Onto the nit-tah grit-tah!

So, hey, lucky me, another easy post. If recent history is any sort of indication, Oregon State shouldn’t pose much of a problem for our Huskies (tipoff is scheduled for 6:00 tonight). We crushed them, 72-103, at the Hec last time around. It was one of the games, however, that lends me the notion that the Huskies are a second half team, as OSU kept it close, 40-39, at the half. Six minutes into the second, we had opened up a 16 point lead.

Matthew Bryan-Amaning had a double-double, posting 24 points and 15 boards, shooting a fantabulous 78.6% from the field. A far cry from the paltry six and 11 he spat up against the Cougars on Sunday, eliciting from me an unprecedented string of vicious profanity that I’d best not repeat here. Look for MBA to bounce back, as he’s got two inches, 35 pounds and three years of experience on Devon Callier, my projected starter at the four-spot for OSU.

I have no idea what sort of defense OSU typically runs—if anyone has a resource that has that sort of thing, I’d be much obliged—but given the success other teams have had running the 2-3 zone against us, it wouldn't be a surprise were Beavers coach Craig Robinson to pull it out against us. They don’t have a lot of length in their starting lineup, though, so tonight would be an excellent night for us to learn how to beat the zone, in-game. (Edit: wyte_lightning informs me that the Beavers run a 1-3-1. I don't think that will challenge MBA like the 2-3).

We’re currently tied with the University of Arizona at the top of the PAC-10 standings, at 7-2. Gill Coliseum should be an excellent place for UW to rebound—metaphorically—following the upset at WSU, as the Beavers have posted only a 5-7 mark at home. Something to keep in mind is OSU’s 76-75 win vs. the Wildcats on Jan. 2^nd. Though unranked at the time by the AP, Arizona was ranked 19^th by RPI, for whatever it’s worth. Also, the Beavs average 70.9 ppg and allow an average of 73.0 ppg, both good for fifth in the PAC-10, despite their eighth place standing, suggesting that they’re perhaps better than their record.

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This being the first recap I've done for the site, I suppose I should count my blessings that this is such an easy game to analyze. As I said in the preview, I thought Matthew Bryan-Amaning's play would be the key to the game, given some of the other, more obvious match ups. He's the Huskies' second scoring option, and in 33 minutes of action last night, he scored just six points on 12.5% shooting. Borrowing a line from a friend of mine, as he said after the game: "Look up the definition of 'ugly' in a dictionary, and it'll be a big, fat UW logo." Predictably, Klay Thompson went off, and I think was in some ways able to use that 40 pound advantage he has on Justin Holiday much of the evening.

I think this is the first game in which we've really, truly missed the much-improved Abdul Gaddy, Strapping our number one scorer with point guard and ball distribution duties really hurt Isaiah's game, as he was held scoreless from the field until the 6:09 mark of the second half. Read that again. Ouch. Looking more at the "ugly" column of the game, the Huskies turned the ball over an incredible 24 times, just below twice their per game average. Additionally, given the purple and gold's 46 (15 on the offensive end) to 32 rebounding advantage, we clearly didn't take advantage of second chances. I'm running out of clever nicknames for the University of Washington, so let's just move on, shall we?

After the jump, I'll focus on MBA's terrible night, and try to decipher exactly why the Dawgs were ineffective in exploiting the weaknesses in Ken Bone's 2-3 zone. Also, I'll try and figure out why a WSU team averaging only 75.8 ppg were able to hang 87 on us on Friel Court, as well as figure out how they were able to force those season-high 24 UW turnovers.  

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The 18th ranked Huskies waltz into the Beasley Coliseum at 7:00 this evening looking to extend their three-game win streak and narrow half game lead over Arizona in the PAC-10 standings.  At 15-4 (7-1 in conference play), the Huskies have shown that they can indeed hang with the big boys.  While not regarded as a particularly strong conference, some early tournament seeding predictions have as many as four PAC-10 teams dancing come March, and continued strong play in-conference is a must to get a crucial high seed.  WSU looks to improve upon their .500 conference record and overcome their weak, 99th ranked strength of schedule--which somewhat invalidates their stronger overall record at 14-6--to show the selection committee they deserve an invite to the best damned playoff in the world.

Throw in the obvious animosity between the two schools, and you can count on a scrappy game.  Players from both teams have been vocal in their disdain during the week leading up to an odd Sunday game time.  Isaiah Thomas questioned why anyone would ever want to go to WSU, and Matthew Bryan-Amaning threw some more trash into the talk by answering, "[because] it's the No.1 party school."

Cougars coach Ken Bone, who spent 2002 to 2005 as a UW assistant has his work cut out for him, even if Vegas only has the Huskies favored by four.  See some specific reasons after the jump.

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