360 Sports Blog

It’s not often northwest sports fans are on the positive side of a stunning, epic finish to a game.  Thursday night was one of the pleasant exceptions, however, with the 11th ranked Huskies beating the 6th ranked Marquette Golden Eagles 80-78 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The game was a fast paced, up and down thriller. Both teams wanted the win badly, and wouldn’t give up. Early on, the Golden Eagles were down six, but came back to lead. In the second half, the Huskies got down by 15 with about 10 minutes to go. This was caused by a run of weak turnovers, bad shots and all around crap play (ahem, Abdul Gaddy). It looked bleak.

It was at this moment we had a choice: continue the mediocre play and typify the northwest sports norm of underachieving, or be badasses and refuse to back down. The latter was chosen. To quote the Grail Knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “You have chosen – wisely.”

On the Huskies last possession, the game was tied 78-78. It was then that Quincy Pondexter took control, driving to the hoop and banking in a short jumper, despite being bumped in the back (a no call, conveniently). There’s now 1.7 seconds left.

A chess match/head game then ensued, with three consecutive time outs being called – the first two by Marquette, the last by Washington – which had me in turmoil. On the ensuing inbound the Golden Eagles got it to mid court and heaved a desperation shot, which was way too close to going in.

There were several key things the Huskies were able to do well (some of which I highlighted in my previous post):

- Intensity. We kept the pace up, which created countless opportunities and kept the pressure on Marquette. It also helped force turnovers, including the last one which led to the winning shot by QP.

- Matthew Bryan Amaning was a force inside with 3 key blocks and stayed out of foul trouble. Hey was a key size advantage.

- Quincy Pondexter had 11 rebounds and 18 points, despite a shaky first half. He also took over the game when it mattered.

We also had several things we can do better:

- Sit Abdul Gaddy for the entire game. Seriously, just put him in the corner with a dunce cap on. This kid has no fire in his eyes. He lacks passion and heart (Read: get him off the damn court!). In this contest he had three turnovers and zero points in limited play.

Now I’m not saying he is a bad player, I’m saying he’s too young. He’s not stepping up when he needs to, which is creating problems on the floor. Once he matures I’m sure he will be a “go to” guy, but right now he needs to keep his ass on the bench until he decides to show some effort.

- Prevent silly turnovers. This is part of what lead to us being 15 down in the contest. We tried to force passes and flopped on inbounding. I don’t know how to fix this one, but it should change.

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Tags: Gaddy, Huskies Basketball, IT, March Madness, MBA, Pondexter, UW

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 9:43 pm by nwsportsguy and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.