Washington Husky Huddle for Tuesday January 24th 2012 (Part One)

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

Washington’s depth was a real concern going into this past weeks games with Cal and Stanford. The loss of sophomore guard C.J. Wilcox, severely hurt both UW’s already thin depth picture and the UW teams ability to hit outside shots. Last Tuesday Percy Allen of the Seattle Times talked about a Husky depth chart that showed senior Darnell Gant and freshman Hikeem Stewart to be it’s only functional depth.

In last week’s column I argued that it was time to burn Andrew Andrews’ red-shirt. I made the case that if Wilcox’s femur stress fracture is as bad as is represented to be normally by a sports injury web site, that UW cannot wait the seven or so weeks that it would take to get him back. Using up senior red-shirt Scott Sugg’s one remaining season to me was too big a price. From my assessment of the pro potential of freshman guard Tony Wroten, having a player of Scott’s level of preparedness and preparing Andrews that much better to help with the guard picture next year seemed to me to be the answer. To further accent that point from another angle, Keegan Hamilton of the Seattle Weekly last Tuesday ran an interesting piece which talked about how good of a player “Tonerrence Wross” would be, if Tony and sophomore guard Terrence Ross could combine their best attributes into one player. Hamilton made the point that Tony needs to improve his free throws and his TO’s, while Terrence needs to be more aggressive with the ball and get to the line where he is solid.

I like the logic here and UW fans would be delighted if the two both stayed another year. I just don’t see it happening though. Tony is just too good and his FT’s this past weekend were actually respectable at 8-12. I think that when Tony gets up to a consistent 75% from the stripe, he is just no less than an NBA All-Star candidate, let alone lottery pick. At this point, he is being strongly considered by many for Pac-12 Player of the Year, as in hoopspeak.com on Wedneesday Tony was chosen by two of five panelists as their early choice for the award. Also on Wednesday gohuskies.com pointed out that Wroten’s stats, if you don’t include FT’s and TO’s are solidly better than all of the highly thought of PG’s in his class. The TO’s will actually be less of a problem in the spread the floor and let ’em play NBA, where more players would “get” his high tech, no-look passing. If Wroten does stay another year and gives the UW a player that can shoot better FT’s and
adapts his passing to the college game, it would be a great gift for the purple and gold, but I do not expect it.

He’s just too good, but in truth if he did stay another year and did improve his game, he may actually make up for the money he lost for that year of pro ball, by being one of the top-3 picked and receiving a huge rookie contract, plus the ridiculous endorsement dollars that come attached. The other problem is that this year is a weak one for PG’s, which slants the decision that Wroten must make even more towards leaving. Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins put it well when he said of Tony after the game on Saturday, “He was a great player tonight, and that usually helps”. Tony just has that huge advantage in being able to force the action with anyone and if he fine tunes his FT’s, look out. Ross on the other hand is not as ready, nor as in demand of a commodity, based on his current performance. Terrence could definitely use another year. He has immense potential, but the 2nd round and the D-League are littered with 6-foot-6 shooting guards that were supposed to be “lottery picks”. Not so much with 6-foot-5 point guards with Wroten’s skills.

Tony is a freak, a once in a lifetime prospect, while Terrence is just a guy with a very likely pro career that should work his way up the draft boards while getting his degree. I would not criticize Tony for leaving this June, but I believe that Ross, N’Diaye, Wilcox, Gaddy and any other U-Dubbers that may feel that they are ready to test the waters, would do best by staying at Montlake. On January 5th swishscout.com did a draft profile on Ross and Wroten, that recommended that both players stick around college. Though I see their logic, I think that in Wroten’s case I would probably not argue with him if he left, but in Ross’ case I think that I agree with them. If C.J.’s injury is a mild and somehow manageable version of the injury and he can in fact play soon, then all bets are off, but with a trip to the desert to face the Arizona schools coming up this week, I still feel that though this is no easy choice, the decision to bring out Andrews would be the right one if Wilcox’s injury were to be closer to what the web site states. On Wednesday C.J. told heraldnet.com in a video interview last Tuesday, that the concern about coming back too soon is the main concern.

“Right now I feel fine, but I worry about potentially breaking it and not being able to play again. So it’s really more of a safety thing.”

Romar added to that when he spoke to the media on Tuesday that C.J. would be back, “Before the end of the year”. Why push Wilcox back or risk worsening his condition by aggravating such a dangerous injury with a risky call, when there are other options. Why take a chance with a player as valuable as Wilcox? The guy is just about as good as it gets for UW. He has the look of a future pro shooting guard and even if UW loses Tony this season, a back court of senior Abdul Gaddy, Andrews, Suggs, Wilcox, Ross and Stewart is pretty daunting. I think that Andrews would have an impact this season, just in allowing UW better production from the bench, Starters need a break now and again and though Abdul, Tony and Terrence are a heck of a line-up, coach Lorenzo Romar needs to be able to bring in something more than just Stewart off the bench or Desmond Simmons from the front court. Hikeem is a good fit defensively and has shown himself able to play team offense, but his ability to score or shoot open shots has been atrocious. I have a lot of faith that the intelligent and hard working Hikeem will improve his offensive game over the off-season and do a better job in a similar role next season, but UW will need production now.

Stewart is lucid though as to what his role is now and what he needs to do over time to play at this level. I would expect Hikeem to be a great guard for UW like Justin Dentmon (who is now arguably the best PG in the NBDL) became. Hikeem
did a nice interview with Percy Allen last Tuesday that brought out his clear headed attitude about the situation. Wilcox though may have been covering for another problem that is now more obvious in the absence of his consistent pro level shooting nights. Lawrence Mitchells of Husky Haul did a feature on Saturday before the Stanford game about a lack of fire or passion on this year’s UW team, pointing to freshman post Desmond Simmons as the lone consistent exception. Jeff Taylor of Husky Haul also weighed into the conversation, with a piece very critical of Romar’s recruiting choices on Tuesday.

“In Lorenzo Romar’s quest to nationalize his recruiting and all-but-ignore the traditional recruiting base in California, he has missed out on opportunities to have veteran players on this roster right now who could have stopped this team from
collapsing under the weight of its own inexperience and lack of cohesion.”

I see both points of view. I do agree that Romar has passed on a lot of good bigs over the years and seems to load up too much on guards, wings and “Gazelles” or bigs that tend to act more like wings, Gant, Joe Wolfinger and current freshman
Jernard Jarreau being cases in point. As far as Mitchells’ point that this UW team lacked that killer instinct or heart (as it is commonly referred to), that is also true to a great extent. Both of those issues may have been addressed (for the time being) though with the addition of freshman walk-on post Austin Seferian-Jenkins. I had mentioned also last week and in the previous week since it was announced that “ASJ” would walk-on, that this may serve to ignite the UW team, at least in practices. As it turns out, not only did “ASJ” serve up some fireworks in practices (last Tuesday Romar called it “impressive”), but on Saturday he effectively did so in prime time against Stanford with seven rebounds in 16 minutes. Romar was impressed and happy with the result after the game and alluded to Austin doing more on offense potentially.

“He didn’t score a point, but with what he does, I think he can be effective in most games. He’s an energy guy who’s strong and physical. As he learns more and more about what we’re doing I think you’ll see him go to the foul line a lot more. Usually physical, aggressive guys do that.”

Though Austin also fouled out with no points, he filled a huge need for UW, as a “weight room” guy. Every team needs that tough guy that it can count on to not back down in a physical confrontation and Austin did a great job of that against a
very talented Cardinal front court, negating what could have been a very severe challenge on the glass. It may be that now UW has another post, along with Simmons, who can bring that “junk yard Dawg” credo to the table and hopefully up the ante of the efforts of the team at large. Austin said after the game, “Yeah, every screen I intend to hit someone really hard”. That type of passion is big for Romar in putting together a rotation that can win on the road in the Pac-12. Romar also talked after the game about Simmons moving outside more, with “ASJ” able to do more of the dirty work up front. That actually makes more sense to me than substituting Stewart. A seven man look of Gaddy, Wroten, Ross, Simmons, “ASJ”, Gant and Aziz is a bit tighter to me than with Stewart who is kind of on loose footing at the present.

“The thing we did differently was we played Desmond (Simmons) more on the perimeter to attempt to give (other wing players) more rest. We got to rest Tony a little more, just a minute or two here or there. And Desmond on the perimeter allowed us to do that and with Austin, Desmond didn’t get worn down.”

Controlling the paint, penetrating to the hoop and getting easy buckets via put-backs and drop-offs are what UW has to do to win those road games where the threes are not falling, something that seems to happen more often than not on the road. I still feel that bringing in one more weapon like Andrews is a great idea. Even if Tony does stay another year (not likely), a solid back-up for Gaddy and Wroten would be highly positive in 2012-13. Andrews makes this team a much more filled out 8-man set. Getting a win over ASU in the first of the two games this week becomes the biggest game of the year for the Dawgs and UW fans should not think that it will be easy. The Sun Devils are coming off a humiliating loss at Utah 64-43, plus the boost that the team should gain from a ceremony to honor former NBA star Lafayette “Fat” Lever by retiring his #12 jersey during the game.