SB Nation User Blog: thecassino

Charles Garcia will not be a Husky

thecassino — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:08:46 -0000

Charles Garcia, a JUCO forward did not meet entrance standards and will not be a part of the basketball team next year. As John points out often, getting JUCOs into the UW can be a fickle thing, and unfortunately for Garcia it sounds like he just missed the cut. Wish him all the best in his basketball future.

The upshot of this story is that it gives Romar an extra scholarship to work with this coming offseason (read: Josh Smith), as with the commitment of Desmon Simmons the roster would have been full, Quincy Pondexter being the only departure from next season's team. Though much like JUCO players, scholarships are a fluid thing and tend to change in a heartbeat. Even with the team only having 2 scholarships to give this year, I'd be surprised if Romar didn't get 3 commitments and "make it work".

09-10 Schedule

thecassino — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:53:49 -0000

11/04/09 vs. Central Washington (Exhibition)
11/13/09 vs. Wright State
11/14/09 vs. Belmont
11/15/09 vs. Portland State
11/20/09 vs. San Jose State
11/29/09 vs. Montana
12/03/09 at Texas Tech
12/06/09 vs. Cal State Northridge
12/12/09 vs. TBA, John R. Wooden Classic
12/19/09 vs. Portland
12/22/09 vs. Texas A&M
12/27/09 vs. San Francisco
12/31/09 vs. Oregon State
01/02/10 vs. Oregon
01/07/10 at Arizona State
01/09/10 at Arizona
01/14/10 vs. California
01/16/10 vs. Stanford
01/21/10 at UCLA
01/23/10 at USC
01/26/10 vs. Seattle University
01/30/10 vs. Washington State
02/04/10 vs. Arizona
02/06/10 vs. Arizona State
02/11/10 at Stanford
02/13/10 at California
02/18/10 vs. USC
02/20/10 vs. UCLA
02/27/10 at Washington State
03/04/10 at Oregon
03/06/10 at Oregon State

30 very winnable games. I love this schedule. Starts off light (and at home, as the loss @Portland last year in the opener was a lesson learned), and the first test of the season will likely be Texas Tech in Lubbock. Depending on who else plays in the Wooden Classic, that could be a tough one. A&M will be a solid squad next year, but we get them at home. Then we get into Pac-10 play, which is really a discussion for another day, but long story short: the Pac-10 is going to be VERY weak next year. The only teams that are a threat to a second consecutive title are Cal and UCLA. Everybody else either got worse (Arizona, Arizona State, Stanford, USC, WSU) or wasn't any good to begin with (Oregon, Oregon State).

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see 27 or 28 wins next year prior to postseason play. I like the schedule that much. And I think that something like 24 wins is the absolute floor (again, before tournaments).

The Newest Husky: Raphael Chillious

thecassino — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:28:07 -0000

It was announced this evening that Raphael Chillious will be replacing Cameron Dollar on Lorenzo Romar's staff.

Chillious was formerly the coach at the South Kent School, where he coached current Huskies Isaiah Thomas and Matthew Bryan-Amaning. He brings with him a wealth of experience coaching and developing young players.

Will this be an improvement over Dollar? Perhaps. It's probably best to take a wait-and-see approach because of the higher demands placed upon college coaches. Will Chillious be able to develop players as well as Dollar did? I think so. Will he be able to hit the ground running in the recruiting game and aid in bringing top level talent to the University of Washington as Dollar did? I'm not so sure, but I'm optimistic.

Cameron Dollar To Seattle University

thecassino — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:27:44 -0000

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/huskyhoops/2009/04/15/cameron_dollar.html

The Huskies lose a great assistant coach and a great recruiter in Coach Dollar.

Some of the names that are being kicked around to take his spot on the staff are:

Curtis Allen: Former Husky who played for Lorenzo Romar. Remains the best free throw shooter to ever don the Purple and Gold with 86.7 career percentage. Allen is a local product, having attended Wilson High School (Tacoma). He was on Ken Bone's staff at Portland State, so it stands to reason that if Romar wants him, he'll get him.

Mark Gottfried: Former coach at Alabama is the most qualified candidate. He has head coaching experience at Murray State and Alabama, and knows the Pac-10 after having spent 8 years as an assistant at UCLA, where he helped win a national title alongside another assistant by the name of Lorenzo Romar. In his 14 years as a head coach he has gone to 7 NCAA tournaments, including an Elite 8 run with Alabama in 2004. He also guided Bama to the school's only #1 ranking in the AP poll.

And the most interesting name I've heard thrown out:

Elston Turner Sr: Yes, the father of freshman shooting guard Elston Turner Jr. Why is this name so interesting? Well he's currently working with the Houston Rockets, and we all know how much recruits love to work with guys who have NBA experience. He played in the NBA and has coached for 3 different teams: the Trailblazers, Kings and Rockets. Clearly, the man has the ability to coach if he has done so in the NBA for 11 years, and he has a relationship with Lorenzo Romar. An added bonus to bringing him on campus? Elston Turner Jr. would have the benefit of his father being a University employee, meaning that his tuition would be payed for, which would give the program an extra scholarship. As it stands right now with only Pondexter being a senior next year, Romar will have just one scholarship to give out. An extra would be huge.

2008-2009 Husky Basketball Highlight reel

thecassino — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:24:51 -0000

2008-2009 Husky Basketball Highlight reel

Ted Miller Interviews Nick Holt

thecassino — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:55:29 -0000

Ted Miller Interviews Nick Holt

For those of you who crave even more Husky football coverage, ESPN's Pac-10 football blogger interviewed Nick Holt.

Husky Basketball Roundup

thecassino — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:49:34 -0000

Husky team awards were given out. Jon Brockman took home the MVP, Justin Dentmon and Quincy Pondexter shared the Most Improved Player award and Venoy Overton won the Defensive Player award. Those are just the main ones, and a total of 11 were given out. (GoHuskies)

Pondexter had hernia surgery. Apparently it was something that was lingering toward the end of the season, which has me thinking: how good can Quincy Pondexter be? He was (in my estimation) far and away the best Husky in the Tournament (23/8 vs. MSU, 20/10 vs Purdue), with this injury. Would a healthy Q-Pon have been enough to push UW past the Boilermakers? Maybe it would, and maybe it didn't effect him that much, but the good news from all of this is that he won't be declaring for the draft (though I don't think there was much worry of that anyway). (Condotta)

Joe Wolfinger makes official what we already knew was coming. Wish him all the best at wherever he lands. There's just not a lot of court time for a 7 foot player who wants to be a 2-guard. (Condotta)

Will Conroy continues to light up the D-League. Including a 53 point performance a little bit ago, boosting his average to 26.5 per game. Oh, and he puts up 7.9 assists to go with that. Which prompts the question: What does the former Husky (and all-time assists leader) have to do to get out of the D-League and into the NBA? (Seattlesportsnet)

Spencer Hawes is done for the rest of the year, thanks to a flagrant foul from Kenyon Martin. (ESPN)

Brockman is moving up draft boards. To save you the time of scrolling down, here's what they wrote about him:

Brockman was dominant on the boards at the Portsmouth Invitational, even though he is only about 6-foot-6 or 6-foot-7. Brockman put up double-double after double-double at Portsmouth, and even surpassed 20 rebounds in one of his games.

-TheHoopsReport

And NBADraft.net has him going 59th to the Lakers in their latest mock.

Brockman was also the recipient of the Chip Hilton Award. Not sure what that is? Me neither. Per Wikipedia:

The Chip Hilton Player of the Year Award is presented to a basketball player who has demonstrated personal character both on and off the court, similar to the fictional Chip Hilton character depicted by Hall of Fame coach Clair Bee in the classic Chip Hilton series of sports stories.

The NCAA has given the national award since 1997 to a Division I men’s basketball player who demonstrates outstanding character, leadership, integrity, humility, sportsmanship and talent.

Guys like Emeka Okafor, Shane Battier and Tim Duncan have won it in previous years. (UDubSports)

Here are a couple of interviews with incoming all world recruit Abdul Gaddy, one text (USABasketball), and and one of him on the radio. (Softy - KJR950) If you have time to give it a listen I recommend it. He says all of the right things; he's competitive, he expects to win, is excited about being a Husky, is working on his defense, and so on. The only thing I didn't like was in the text interview he said that he and Isaiah Thomas are "just trying to make it to the NBA." That's not what you want, Abdul. You both want to get degrees. You want to stay in college for four years. You want to have one of the best college basketball teams of all time in 3 years built around the two of you, Josh Smith and Tony Wroten. Trust me.

In some early looks at the 2009-2010, Fox Sports has UW 7th in the nation, and TheBigLead thinks the Huskies will be good enough for 10th. Great to be getting some respect, but as always take things this early with a grain of salt.

Joe Lunardi thinks that the UW will be a 6 seed next year. A bit weird that he thinks the Huskies will drop 2 seeds when most think they could be better, and UCLA is going to improve from a 6 to a 4 despite losing Jrue Holiday, Josh Shipp, Darren Collison and Alfred Aboya. Instant loss of credibility: predicting ASU to make the tourney. It's like he drew them out of a hat. (ESPN)

Got a link about past/current/future Husky players, the team in general, the Pac-10, or an idea for a story? Send it along.

Go Dawgs.

2009 Jam Fest Dunk Competition #30 is Peyton Siva from Franklin, heading to Louisville. #11 is...

thecassino — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:08:48 -0000

2009 Jam Fest Dunk Competition

#30 is Peyton Siva from Franklin, heading to Louisville.
#11 is Avery Bradley from Bellarmine, heading to Texas.
#3 is Abdul Gaddy from Bellarmine, heading to Washington.

Avery Bradley wins it. Gaddy looks like he didn't really try too hard, my guess is that after having played with Bradley for 5 years he knew he couldn't beat him so he wasn't going to kill himself trying.

Obama Picks Against the Pac-10

thecassino — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:28:28 -0000

From this picture (click it to enlarge):

You can see that President Obama has picked the following things:

UCLA loses to VCU

Arizona State loses to Temple

and if you look closely under the other guys arm, you can see "ryl", so he also has:

Cal loses to Maryland

Furthermore, you can see that he has a team with "ue" (Purdue) playing UConn in the sweet sixteen, so he either has:

UW loses to Purdue or

UW loses to Mississippi State.

Also he has Wake in the sweet sixteen, so:

Arizona loses to Utah or

Arizona loses to Wake

Also in the sweet sixteen is Michigan State, so:

USC loses to Boston College or

USC loses to Michigan State

Now of course, all of this is hogwash and meaningless, as Barack Obama has no pull over the events that will transpire in the coming weekend, nor even is there reason to believe that he's a better picker than you or I. But seriously ZERO Pac-10 teams are going to make it to sweet sixteen? Does he even have a single Pac-10 team winning a game? Come on, Barry.

The Matchup: Stanford

thecassino — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:39:09 -0000

Stanford beat OSU to advance in the Pac-10 tournament and play the Huskies.

Though they were the lower seed, Stanford is the more dangerous matchup for UW; Stanford is better than OSU in just about every phase of the game. In fact Stanford is a much better team than their 6-12 Pac-10 record indicated. Just for a comparison, here are their overall/ofensive/defensive ratings with national ranks in parentheses.

Stanford: .8556 (48th) / 113.4 (26th) / 97.2 (87th)

OSU: .6194 (122nd) / 103.8 (132nd) / 99.5 (134th)

So our road to the tournament title got a little tougher.

How does UW match up against Stanford? Pretty well. Their guards are taller than ours, but so are everybody's. Mitch Johnson is 6-1 and Anthony Goods is 6-3, so the height advantage is not big enough to think that it's going to be a problem. The rest of their team is a lot like the Huskies', with their contributing players in the 6-6 to 6-8 range. Only Will Paul is taller than that at 6-10, but he is very soft and a downright terrible rebounder for someone his or any size.

One advantage that the Huskies will have (much like they've had over nearly every opponent) is superior depth. Stanford relies heavily on Johnson, Goods, Lawrence Hill and Landry Fields. It's a good quartet, but I believe that the reason Stanford has not won more games is that they do not have a lot of role players who can come in and make the difference. We know that that is not the case for the Huskies, who throw out guys like Venoy Overton, Darnell Gant, Justin Holiday and Matthew Bryan-Amaning to defend, rebound and score when given opportunities.

Stanford is a talented team that played us tough twice this season. We cannot get caught looking past them or thinking about the other tournament or they will make us pay. For the Huskies to beat Stanford they have to continue to do what they've done all year: get after it on the offensive glass and get to the free throw line. Stanford is a quality team, but they are not on the level of the University of Washington. So long as the Dawgs come out focused the result should be favorable.