UDub is overrated - for now
An early No. 10 ranking is doing no favors for Washington. But the Dawgs are doing even fewer favors for themselves. In fact - for every good thing the team does do, there are two bad things that really hurt.
Happy: Huskies' up-tempo game creates lots of scoring chances.
Crappy: It also gets them to the foul line, where they miss and give the ball back.
Crappy: If the fast push doesn't result in a basket or foul, the Huskies look lost in the half court.
Happy: They crash the boards hard and get a lot of second-chance points.
Crappy: They get a lot of boards because they miss a lot of shots.
Crappy: Everyone going in for the rebound leaves the fast-break open to the opponent.
Happy: Isiah Thomas is fearless and looks to make his own shot by driving to the hole.
Crappy: Isaih Thomas is a munchkin and can't get his shot off among the trees.
Crappy: Only Thomas, Podexter and sometimes Turner look to shoot. Everyone else makes bad passes.
Happy: Overactive defense creates turnovers.
Crappy: Overactive defense leaves the backdoor open for easy points.
Crappy: It also leaves them out of position if they miss the pass, giving up open shots.
Happy: Guards work really hard to get the ball inside to senior and main scorer Pondexter
Crappy: Guards spend too much time trying to get the ball inside and don't look to shoot
Crappy: Too much passing results in sloppy ball-handling and TOs
Happy: Huskies don't rely on the three and can get back into games with good D.
Crappy: Huskies don't rely on the three because they can't make it even if they wanted to.
Crappy: Teams aren't afraid to give up the outside shot agains UW and collapse the zone.
So, you can see we have some work to do - but despite all these problems, Washington is still playing good, tough basketball, taking a tough Texas Tech team into overtime at Lubbock. They are young and need some shooters to emerge but they are going to be fun to watch.
