Initial Husky Thoughts

The Husky basketball season is underway and the Dawgs are headed to New York to play in the semi-finals of the NIT Season Tip-Off. Tonight's win over Utah was big, because now the Huskies get two more guaranteed games against big name teams on national TV. Throw those games in with games against Pitt, at LSU and at Oklahoma State and the Huskies should have a pretty good non-conference schedule come March. Playing these games, the road games in particular, should prove to be good preparation for the Pac-10 season. That is something UW lacked last season and they ended up winning just one road game. After watching tonight's game, here are just some random thoughts on the team, new players, etc.

• Venoy Overton reminds me a lot of Will Conroy and not just because of the tattoos. He plays great pressure D, forcing a few turnovers, loves to push the ball on the break and just has a knack for finding open teammates and getting them the ball. Conroy's ability to do these things allowed Nate Robinson to play more of the off guard and be more of the true scorer that he was and it appears that Overton will allow Justin Dentmon to do the same thing.
  

• Jon Brockman will probably be an All-American. Tonight he had 31 points and 18 rebounds against a 7-footer who will probably play in the NBA. He is just an absolute monster underneath the hoop and continues to improve. The Huskies will need him to continue to carry the scoring load like he did tonight, but it looks like he is ready to do so. Word was that he had worked hard on his jump shot in the off-season and he knocked down a couple tonight. If he can hit that mid-range shot consistently then he will be that much more dangerous.
  

• Someone needs to step up and help Brockman with the scoring. This team's strength is probably it's depth and the way they run so much will spread the scoring around as well, but they need a consistent number two scoring option. Pondexter seemed the most likely candidate before the season, but he hasn't really been very assertive so far, taking just five shots tonight and eight last night. Now that it looks like Overton will be getting big minutes and playing alongside Dentmon in the back court, that should allow Dentmon to take on a bigger share of the scoring load and he had a solid game tonight with 16 points.
  

• This is till a young team and will take time to reach their full potential. There were still a few sloppy stretches in tonights game with bad turnovers and some breakdowns on defense. But remember, the most experienced player on the team is Joel Smith and he is just a junior who sat out last season on a medical red shirt. The non-conference schedule should help a lot in getting ready for Pac-10 play and getting Appleby back in December will add another experienced ball handler to the back court.