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First Pac12 Homestand for the Dawgs.
I don’t know about you, but it was a bit of a challenge for me last Thursday evening. I switched back and forth between UW football and basketball on the flat screen. The football game was an emotional roller coaster. It had as many ups and downs as a Jaguar XKR-S lead-pedaling down an old road littered with deep potholes. When I switched to basketball, on the other hand, there was a calming familiarity. What was obvious – I was watching a Romar-coached team – defensive-minded and athletic.
Things were clicking. I hadn’t seen this brand of basketball from the Dawgs in a while. The defensive pressure was quite evident. On offense, they seemed to have rediscovered “that zone” -- between being too frenetic with poor shot selection and casting the ball up too early, and overcompensating by slowing down the pace too far and losing their soul as a team. We’ve witnessed both of these extremes, in non-conference play, as the young Dawgs struggled to find their identity. Naysayers were feeding off of this like chum for dogfish.
This also looked like an actual college basketball game! There was little resemblance to the NBA, with its one-on-one character that bores me to tears. There was a point in time, not so many days back, where Tony Wroten looked like he had already made the jump to “The League.” As the team struggled, he took it upon himself to make things happen. There is a time and place for this in college basketball, but not as standard fare. It can be toxic to team chemistry.
On Thursday, Tony scored his points within the flow of the game. For UW to have any chance of making it to the Big Dance, this will have to be his mantra (as well as making free throws). Such a talent has a choice: to enhance the play of his teammates, or cause latent bitterness and jealousy by playing selfish.
Today’s contest is against an improved Oregon squad. What I’m hoping to see is team that is focused on defense and unselfish on offense. One of the keys to handling the Ducks will be if the Dawgs are able to cause turnovers that can lead to easy points.
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