Washington Husky Huddle for Tuesday January 31st 2012 (Part One)

(Jason McCleary of leftcoastrecruiting.com contributed to this post)

The Dawgs quieted their critics with a gutty sweep of the Arizona schools over the weekend. On Thursday UW beat a stubborn ASU team in Tempe 60-54. They then far exceeded that accomplishment by taking down the powerful ‘Cats in Tucson
69-67 on Saturday.

On Thursday it was an astounding performance by freshman guard Tony Wroten with 22 points on 9-12 from the field. Sophomore guard Terrence Ross followed with 12 points on a miserable 4-13 from the floor, but the story here was the
Dawgs composure in the face of a determined and valiant effort by the undermanned and inspired home team.

The Sun Devils went on to beat WSU on Saturday and really looked like a team that has turned a corner themselves. Frosh wing Jonathan Gilling had a whale of a game shooting the ball like a three point specialist as a pure freshman and at
6-foot-8 and around 215 lbs. Gilling was also no shrinking violet when it came to competition, hanging 20 points on UW and talking tough to the media after the game.

“I don’t think they’re any better than us. They’re maybe more athletic, but I don’t think player for player they’re better than us. I really thought we could beat these guys.”

The Dawgs succeeded in standing tall in the face of a legitimate threat in ASU. They didn’t dominate the Sun Devil;s, but in the end they got the W. UW coach Lorenzo Romar also talked last Tuesday about his team’s new found resolve in playing on the road.

“Our understanding of what we need to do on the road to be successful is better than it was the last time we hit the road.”

The coach knew something, because the Huskies are really starting to look like teams from the last three seasons. It is way too early to announce fait accompli, but at least from the standpoint of poise, the Dawgs looked like a team that is
able to stay focused enough to win on the road.

The Huskies have some real weaknesses, especially in a lack of inside scoring and overall depth, but to me there was a corner turned in the desert when it came to the team’s ability to play consistently and to utilize what strengths they do have.

Gregg Bell of Gohuskies.com travels with the team and is the voice of the UW Athletic Department to the media to a great degree, so he he has arguably better access to the team than the media at large. Bell wrote a nice story on the ASU game on Thursday, which included some great anecdotes.

Against ‘Zona, Tony again led UW in scoring with 17, but on terrible 5-18 shooting. What Wroten did well was come to the party when the team needed a boost. Tony made the plays that were required to win on both ends. It was a Wroten block of
‘Zona frosh guard Josiah Turner that determined the game at the buzzer. It was a shot clock buzzer beater with 9:03 to play that put UW back up nine and provided a psychological edge.

That is what the great ones do. Guys like Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and last years stars of this match-up and this league Derrick Williams and Isaiah Thomas who both had their own clutch plays at the finish to win it. I found it weak sauce that Tony was not given the Pac-12 Player of the Week on Monday, as Oregon State junior guard Jared Cunningham won the award.

Cunningham was great in one road game, but Tony was great in two and a lot further away from home (Eugene OR is 45-minutes away from Corvallis). Jared leads Tony this season by one point per game, but the way Wroten is improving and because of the fact that the Husky is only a freshman, bodes well for the 2nd half of conference play in the race for Player of the Year, which includes Jorge Gutierrez and others. A lot of that award depends on how the team does, more often than not.

Though the conference didn’t recognize him fairly this week, a number of national media types are starting to watch Tony closely. On Friday after the ASU game Yahoo led off the “who’s hot, who’s not” segment of their weekly look at the Pac-12 focusing on his eye-popping stats over the past few games.

“Wroten is the Huskies’ leading scorer and continues to play steady basketball. He is averaging 19.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists and shooting 59.5 percent from the field in his past three games. He continues to struggle from the line,
though; he is at just 54.6 percent from the charity stripe for the season.”

Dick Vitale proved that he watches the games that are featured on his network and vaulted Tony to near the top of his “diaper dandies” list on Monday. Tony was the first guard mentioned which speaks volumes, as Vitale always seems to
recognize the west coast guys last if at all.

“My vote goes to Anthony Davis of Kentucky. He has such an impact on a game with his defensive presence in the lane. There have been a lot of impact diaper dandies this season, like Cody Zeller of Indiana, Tony Wroten at Washington, Brad Beal of Florida, Moe Harkless of St. John’s, B.J. Young of Arkansas, Trey Burke of Michigan, Austin Rivers of Duke and Davis’ teammate, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. There have been lots of others, and it is great to know there is so much young talent in college basketball.”

Wroten was the buzz in Seattle on 710-ESPN on Monday, as Brock and Salk talked about him becoming UW’s undisputed go-to guy this season. Tony may be the Player of the Year in the Pac-12, but without solid contributions from Wilcox and
Ross, Aziz providing an inside presence on both ends, the award will likely not be given to him

I believe that Tony is going to put on quite a show the rest of the way for UW, as he has really become the go-to-guy on a team with three such players. Wroten, Ross and sophomore guard C.J. Wilcox are all in the top-7 in scoring in the Pac-12 and the argument can be made that UW has the best back-court in the nation with that trio plus junior Abdul Gaddy.

Gaddy, who is 3rd in assists in the conference, had a rough weekend in the desert, but in usual form didn’t do much to hurt his team in the process. Against the Sun Devils ‘Dul scored only five points in 40-minutes, with four turnovers and one board, but he balanced those dismal numbers with five assists, three steals and a block.

Against the ‘Cats Gaddy was saddled with foul trouble, finishing with two points in 29-minutes, but he delivered another five assists and only one TO. It did look however that UW played with more urgency in the spurt where Tony was forced to run the point on his own and when Gaddy returned, that seemed to be the time when UW’s dominance seemed to wane.

I doubt that you can make that assertion, based on such a small time frame to judge him by, but Gaddy needs to step it up. He doesn’t hurt the UW team, in fact he is efficient in running them in general, but the fire that Tony, Terrence and
C.J. bring and the multiple threats that they pose collectively is also hard to argue with.

Because Wilcox is still recovering from a stress fracture in his femur, it may work out best anyway to rest Wilcox when UW can, using him only when needed. This way Abdul keeps his starting spot, while continuing to work on getting his game
untracked. Gaddy needs to play more aggressively on offense, but at least on defense and away from the ball he seems to be at worst a solid puzzle piece.

What is puzzling though is the way that Abdul has taken so long to become a prime time player at this level. Some feel he never will and that he will be one of the bigger disappointments in Husky history, after being chosen by most analysts as
the #2 PG in the class of 2009 after NBA star John Wall. Others, like me, feel that he will start kicking it into gear.

Gaddy’s progress is curiously like that of Quincy Pondexter, who really didn’t start showing himself to be the dominant player that most felt he would until half way through his junior year. We are at that point now for Abdul and I feel that his time is coming soon.

If Gaddy can get his show on the road and Wilcox can stay healthy, this UW team which lost to Cal with C.J. on the bench and lost on the road to Colorado in a game where they showed very weak conviction, could be the best in the conference. Cal and UW and now tied for 1st place, after the Bears beat Stanford at home on Sunday, but the tie-breaker goes to Cal because of their win last Thursday in Seattle.

The road to the Pac-12 regular season title is a tough one for the Bears though. Cal must play a now angry group of ‘Cats this Thursday, with a renewed ASU on Saturday. Those two are at home, but the Bears must travel to LA for USC and UCLA on the following weekend. Then Cal must host the surging Oregon schools, followed by a trip to the Rockies where Colorado is undefeated in conference play. Then they must travel to Palo Alto CA to meet the rival Cardinal.

That is at least six out of nine games that are serious tests. UW must also play UCLA twice, travel to the Oregon schools, host the Arizonans and travel to WSU, but to me that seems like an easier road. Either way it’ll be the old cliche, take them one game at a time, but the way UW seems to be maturing, the signs are good for Dawg fans.

After the sweep, UW is now getting the “bubble” mentions, which in this year’s Pac-12 is remarkable in and of itself. Though UW lost five non-conference games against Nevada, Saint Louis, Marquette, Duke and South Dakota State, those teams are wearing well as the year moves on.

Nevada is the favorite to win the WAC and are two games up in 1st place at the moment. The Billikens were tied for 1st with UMass in the A-10. SLU were beaten by the Minutemen on Saturday and are only one game out with a favorable schedule (including a home date with UMass) here on out. Marquette is 15th ranked and in 2nd place in the Big East which should yield a slew of at-large bids.

Duke is ranked #5 and tied for 1st in the ACC. Even SDSU has been impressive in 2nd place in the Summit league with 1st place Oral Roberts coming to their place after beating the Jackrabbits at ORU. SDSU is also scoring 80 PPG (12th nationally). The SDSU game was a poor showing for UW, as were the games at Nevada and SLU, but none can really be considered a truly “bad loss”.

On Monday Husky Haul came out with a piece that talked about the Dawgs being “firmly on the bubble”, Eamonn Brennan of ESPN ranked UW 2nd in his weekly Pac-12 power rankings, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi brought the Dawgs into his “Bracketology” to a 12 seed in a play-in game and Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times pointed out that UW’s normal late-season surge is now under way.

“Wroten’s block was the kind of last-second magic that seems to happen often to Washington at about this point in the season. It felt like a turnaround play in a season on the brink. It was a reminder of the resilience of Romar-coached teams. A statement that there is a lot of life left in these Huskies.”

Brennan provided a little perspective on Tuesday when he chose no Pac-12 teams to be in with at-large bids, based on the leagues 1-31 record against non-conference opponents with RPI’s of 50 or better. Eamonn chose UW to win the conference preseason, but it appears that the reality to him and most observers now is that even if the UW team realizes it’s high level of potential, their poor bob-con record puts their NCAA resume on shaky ground.

ESPN’s Jason King only mentioned UW though in the context of bubble teams Oregon and Arizona, not even recognizing the Dawgs as in the picture.

Whether UW fans agree or not, it could all come tumbling down with a loss to UCLA on Thursday at 6 p.m. (PST) or (gasp) last place USC on Saturday at 8 p.m. (PST). This young UW team has the challenge of playing every game like it’s last or
at least like it is very fearful of the consequences. They must realize that they need to do what they are capable of doing or they are very capable of getting beat by anyone on their schedule.

I saw that ability and cognizance against ASU and ‘Zona, so UW fans should have hope that their team is at the point of “getting it”. Whether they keep it or not is the challenge. Some games like the trip to the Oregon schools and possibly the game at UCLA they could lose, even if they play well.

The key is just playing well, letting the rest take care of itself and most importantly not lose the games that they should be able to win, as they did last season with the three straight road losses at WSU, OSU and Oregon that ruined their season.

The ASU game had the look of a game that could have done just that, but Wroten literally willed the Dawgs to the win. UW ground out a win with a team effort down the stretch, but when ASU threatened to wrestle control away at every turn, it
was Tony more often than not who answered the bell. Tony went face first into the best that ASU could muster and left it for his mates to pick up the pieces afterward. Romar marveled at Wroten’s effort after the game to the media.

“I’d be willing to wager you’ve not seen what just happened. Against a team that plays not just a regular zone, but really good zone for 40 minutes. I don’t think he took one outside shot and scored 22 points. That’s pretty impressive to be able to do that.”

One terrific Wroten dunk was chosen as the #1 play on Sportscenter’s “Plays of the Night”, but the game was filled with eyebrow raisers, as you can see in the YouTube highlight reel. Like a prize fighter Wroten delivered key blows all night.
Whether it was an “and one” with a minute to play to bring the UW up seven, to acrobatic back-to-back-to-back lay-ins to put the Dawgs up eight with 16 minutes to play.

It was also Tony’s consistency with nine points in the 1st half to keep the Dawgs only down 22-24 at the break when ASU’s defense was suffocating the rest of the UW squad. Wilcox quietly came back into action, which in itself was almost as
important as Wroten’s unflappable will. C.J. is very close to Tony in his importance to UW’s hopes.