Rush The Court

From the “Is This Really Necessary?” Department.

Game of the Night. Washington 84, Stanford 83. This was an entertaining game that was decided when Stanford’s Landry Fields made one dribble after catching a perfect three-quarter court pass with 2.2 seconds left.  The problem was that the dribble was in traffic and the ball landed on someone’s foot and skirted out of bounds.  Replays showed that it likely hit a UW player’s foot, which would have given Stanford one last shot at the win, but home court ruled.  We watched a good deal of this game, and while both Stanford and Washington appear to be top-half Pac-10 teams, we didn’t see anything that would lead us to believe either of these teams would play more than one game in the NCAAs.  Anthony Goods provided 19 pts for the losing team, while Jon Brockman contributed a stellar 19/18.  Freshman Isaiah Thomas dropped 18 himself.

Other Scores on a Tim Tebow Kinda Night.

• Arizona St. 69, Oregon St. 38.  Actually, we hope you didn’t tune in for this abomination.  ASU shot 16-18 for the second half and a scorching 65% for the game.
• Butler 64, Wright St. 48. Butler really stuck it to the visiting Raiders in a game that Brad Brownell’s WSU squad legitimately thought they had a chance to win.  Matt Howard and Gordon Hayward combined for 26/14.
• Minnesota 52, Iowa 49. Where’d this ‘typical’ Big 10 score come from?  Doesn’t everyone know that the Big 10 is an offensive conference this year?  Iowa had a 13-pt lead in the first half, but Minny fought back to win in Iowa City for the first time in its last five tries.
• Xavier 70, St. Louis 44. Xavier’s Derrick Brown had a perfect night (6-6, 3-3 from three, and 5-5 from the line) for 20 pts in the blowout win, and we can’t help but wonder… isn’t SLU’s Rick Majerus a better coach than this?
• Arizona 67, Oregon 52. In an ignoble stat, no Duck reached double figures in this game.  Arizona’s Chase Budinger hit for 20 pts and Jordan Hill had 9/12.
• California 57, Washington St. 50. It’s simply astonishing to us that Cal lost two players to the NBA from a ninth place team, but is now 3-0 in the Pac-10 with three solid wins under its belt.  Right now, the Bears are arguably the third best team in that league.

On Tap Friday (all times EST):  there’s one game worth watching after your fifth gin-and-tonic tomorrow night.

• St. Mary’s @ Santa Clara (ESPNU) – 11pm.  SC’s John Bryant is the story of the year nobody is talking about, averaging 18/12 after getting stabbed in Australia during the offseason.  Patty Mills has got SMC rolling , with ten Ws in a row.