Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Tuesday Morning Review Feb 27th

Huskies
Well, after losses to both Oregon schools, our season is pretty much over. I still think we should have a chance if we beat UCLA, USC, Arizona State, then Washington State, but I'm not sure. We have almost no chance of pulling that off anyways.
There's a simple explanation for why we lost to Oregon State. The refs or our style of play. Despite shooting the same percentage as them from the field, on 12 more shots, with a 39 to 17 rebound differential, we managed to shoot only 10 to their 42 free throws. Turnovers also did us in because we had 21 to their 10. Dentmon played like crap with 6 turnovers, and we lost a must win game against an easy opponent.
Against Oregon, I couldn't help myself from yelling at the TV because of some of the atrocious calls being made. I always thought the reason home teams win more often should be because of their fans, not their refs. Pretty much the same story as OSU, we shot 50% to their 54% but got 14 more despite having almost 2x as many turnovers. Unfortunately, they shot 40 to our 18 free throws.
I was hoping that if we sucked enough this season it would be because Hawes wasn't that great, but he's played well enough to get drafted in the top 5, so I think he might be gone.
Our draft class consists of two power forwards and a swingman, which is something we need. Besides Joel Smith, who was out all season with an injury, we have no swingmen that are in the 6-5 range on this team. We did have Harvey Perry, but he decided to transfer. Anyways, as far as worst case scenarios go, this is up there. I guess that's what happens when your team has 2 seniors who don't play much, and only 1 junior who plays.
Sonics:
2 wins and 2 losses. I'd rather us just tank the rest of the season, and now that Rashard is going to opt out of his contract for free-agency, I wish we had traded him and someone like Gelebale or Watson for a 1st round pick this year.
Our win against Memphis was Sonics' basketball at its purest. High scoring high octane offense. 34 points 7 rebounds for Rashard, 13 pts 15 rebs for Wilcox, 10 pts 14 rebs for Collison, 27/6/5 for Ray Ray, and 15 points 12 assists for Ridnour. Not much bench scoring, but 7 assists for Watson off the bench. When we play like that, I don't think anyone can stop our offense.
After that, we go ahead and lose to New Orleans, a horrible team. Rashard and Ray Allen played as well as they always do, with Earl Watson playing great off the bench. But you can't be outrebounded by 14 and have more than 2x the turnovers and expect to win, even if you do shoot 52% to their 37% (only 16 FT to 29 FT).
The next night at San Antonio, we got crushed, with Rashard leading the way for 10/6/3, which is never a good sign. How can an offense be so good, and then only score 45 points through 3 quarters? Probably because of Spurs defense, Spurs home court advantage, and Bruce Bowen cheap defense (4-20 night of shooting for Ray Ray).
We then beat our rivals, Portland on Monday. No starter on their team did anything, and they only shot 4 free throws as a team. Nice to beat your rivals, but I don't want them having a worse record then us, then picking Joakim Noah to leave us with overrated Julian Wright.
Other:
Again, baseball is starting up again, and all this Matsuzaka talk makes me wish we signed him. Oh well, we have a pretty good team, can't wait to see them in action.

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