- Thursday night was quiet around the conference with Stanford’s demolition of Seattle the only game of the night. Little can be taken away from the game due to the imbalance of talent, but the fact that Seattle won the battle on the boards could be used as ammunition for Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins in the practices leading up to the Cardinal’s next game against North Carolina State on Sunday. Given that the Wolfpack has been strong on the glass (especially on the offensive end) thus far, they could present problems for Stanford if they’re not careful about that area of the game.
- Friday night’s slate is pretty light as well, but in the sole game, Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar has a chance to earn his 200th win as the head coach of the Huskies. Including his stints at Pepperdine and Saint Louis, Romar has 292 wins in his career, but a win against Nevada would make him only the third coach (after Hec Edmundson and Marv Hashman) in Washington history to achieve that milestone. Of course, Romar has quite a long way to go if he ever hopes to catch Edmundson (the namesake of the Hec Ed), who compiled 488 wins as the head coach of the Huskies from 1920-47.
- UCLA gets back to work on Saturday, hosting Texas at the Sports Arena. The Bruins hope to build on the momentum begun in their last game, where they earned their first win against a Division I team this year. In order to turn things around, they’ll need to pick things up on the defensive end, and freshman guard Norman Powell hopes to be able to help his team do just that. Taking a cue from former Bruin Arron Afflalo, Powell announced his desire to “lock down the other team’s best player.” Ben Howland has to like that enthusiasm (along with the youngster’s excellent athleticism), but Powell will have to prove his ability to become that type of defensive presence in order to continue earning more minutes.
- Sean Miller expected junior forward Solomon Hill to be a team leader both vocally and by example this season, but Hill’s game has taken a big step forward as well. It’s not just Hill’s team-leading 12.0 points per game. Or his team-leading 3.1 assists per game (even more impressive considering he’s a 6’6” guy who started at power forward in the Wildcats’ last game). Or even his 7.9 rebounds per game. The fact that Hill has only turned the ball over nine times in the last five games (after coughing it up eight times in the first two games) while handling the ball on a regular basis has been big. The fact is, Miller sees Hill as his jack-of-all-trades. And, with the experience Hill has built up in his first two seasons in Tucson, he has shown a good ability to play through foul trouble this year. Despite having picked up four fouls in five different games this season, Hill has never seen his minutes severely limited by foul trouble.
- Finally, with the first ever Pac-12 Championship game in football coming up tonight, it’s time to wrap up the battle between Connor and I for the Big Civil Apple Duel title. My Hail Mary pass to try to catch up to Connor last week fell short, as I went 3-4 in rivalry week, while my opponent went 4-3, extending his lead to four games on the season, with only the Oregon/UCLA mismatch left to play. And, as much as I would like to imagine a scenario by which UCLA is able to keep the Friday night game interesting, I’m only picking UCLA by a score of 28-27 out of desperation, boredom and a healthy dose of sleep deprivation. Connor sees Oregon winning 45-14 (and who can blame him), but regardless of the score, the first round of this battle is already decided. However, I’ll have my chance at revenge, as next week we’ll start picking some basketball games every week and we’ll (thankfully) be resetting our records at that time.
AMurawa (999 Posts)Andrew Murawa Likes Basketball.