Monday Morning Review Feb 12th

Fairly good week for Seattle Sports. The Sonics split 4 games, and the Huskies won two must-win games.
Sonics
On Monday, the Sonics lost at the Wizard's, and Collison finally had his first bad game. It wasn't really bad, just not eye popping like before, but that's ok because Wilcox picked up the slack with 24-10 to go with Ray Allen's 29-7-7-5 steals game. "Hibachi" didn't do much, scoring just 16 points on 4 of 14 shooting but Brendan Haywood had 20 11 on us and Caron Butler scored 38 points. The main point is that while we did shoot 53.6% to their 49.4%, they took 41 free throws to our 17.
The following Wednesday, the Sonics recovered with a win at Indiana. Ray Allen had 33 9 5, while everyone else played just good enough for us to win. Ridnour finally got to start, and the team as a whole shot 55.3%. Jermaine O'Neal was injured, but they started Troy Murphy in his place, and he did well scoring 22 points grabbing 8 rebounds, and getting 2 steals 2 blocks, and 5 threes in 7 tries. The Pacers as a whole shot 39.6%, so despite grabbing 18 more rebounds and taking 20 more shots, we still won.
Last Saturday, we lost to Sacramento. Ray Allen once again carried the team with 29 points 5 assists and 3 rebounds. Collison had another sub-par game. Rashard Lewis made his starting debut logging 37 minutes, but shot just 2 for 11. His overall stat line was 14, 7, 5, so not bad. Ridnour started again, and shot decently, but didn't distribute that well. What killed us was that we shot 11% lower and took 6 fewer shots, though we did manage to take 38 free throws.
The next day, we flipped it up with Sacramento and played them again, but this time at their home. Rashard Lewis rebounded with 23 10 on 7 of 19 shooting and 8 for 8 from the charity stripe. Wilcox went 8-9 from the field and Ray Allen scored 25. Collison was horrible this time, managing just 5 points 4 rebounds, but Petro came off the bench and had 12 points and 9 rebounds. As a team, we managed to get 41 free throws, which is great, especially for an away game. For the Kings, Ron Artest and Kevin Martin managed to play well, and Corliss Williamson, who I didn't even know was still in the league got 20 points 11 rebounds off the bench, but in the end our 41 extra free throws at a 90% clip compared to their 30 free throws at a 63% clip sealed the deal.
Huskies Basketball
We eeked out a win against underrated Cal to start of the week. Brockman was his usual amazing self with 22 points and 12 rebounds. Artem Wallace played decently as he got 22 minutes in the starter's role and managed 8 points and 2 rebounds. Hawes was great off the bench, and Appleby had a very efficient 34 minutes of play with 4-5 shooting, and Dentmon continued his solid play with 12 5 and 5. Pondexter was finally back in the starting rotation, but didn't play well. His height and defense might have made the difference though. For Cal, Ryan Anderson played great again with 17 and 7, and Theo Robertson had a good all around game before fouling out. Ubaka killed us off the bench, scoring 20 points. In the end, our 57% shooting to their 44.6%, our 24 free throws to their 7, and our 35 to 21 rebound differential is what saved us. Funny how the game was even that close when looking at those numbers, but they managed to get 14 more shots off than us despite us only having 6 more turnover than them.
Against a "slumping" Stanford, Romar finally inserted his original lineup. Hawes and Brockman each played 30 minutes and had 18 7, and 14 10 respectively. Dentmon only played 19 minutes, and didn't play well throughout the game. In the end, our rebound differential and our free throws won us the game. Both Lopez's were contained, with them combining for 13 points 7 rebounds and 6 blocked shots. Lawrence Hill didn't get any rebounds either, and had trouble shooting. Their guards, Mitch Johnson, Anthony Goods, and Fred Washington all played mediocre games, as we finally showed that we are capable of good defense. All in all, the Huskies won when they had to. Next week's schedule is tough, as we face WSU, and then Pittsburgh away. It doesn't get any easier, as we finish up the season with one easy game at Oregon State, and then face the three headed monster known as at Oregon, USC, then UCLA.
Huskies Football
Willingham had a pretty good recruiting class with 4 4 star recruits at the RB, WR, CB, and TE positions. We desperately need help at RB and WR, so this is great news. Most sports writers have us ranked us at around 27th in the nation, ahead of Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
Our non-conference schedule is at Syracuse (easiest game on the schedule), Boise State (always good but they are losing their QB Zabransky), Ohio State (obviously tough as always, but they lose a lot of people and didn't have a great recruiting class, only one 5 star recruit), then we finish off our season at Hawaii, a team that was ranked at the end of last season,. All in all, looks like a tough schedule, but if we do well, will give us a chance to get a bowl bid. The Jake Locker era begins.
College Basketball
Josh Heytvelt was suspended by Gonzaga, which is bad for them because he's 6'11" and averaging 16 8. They still aren't playing Micah Downs enough, but losing a guy like Heytvelt is really gonig to hurt.
Mariners Baseball
Mariners sites are starting to have predictions out, and the predictions so far are pretty conservative I think. I guess I just see everyone's upside and predict as a fan would. For Johjima, I have to think that after a year of playing in the US, his average and power would at least stay the same, and his walks would increase because he drew plenty of walks in Japan. For Sexson, a lot of people say he lost his bat speed and he's done, but after the last two months of last year, I say that the first 2 months of last season were what brought him down, and that him being able to dig himself out of that hole is a major accomplishment. For Lopez, people keep saying that Hargrove's bunting ways ruined him, but I think he just got tired for a full season. This season I'm thinking he'll just put a whole year together of 285 average ball with just under 20 hr's and sb's.