REVIEW OF THE HUSKIES CRUSHING LOSS

I just finished re-watching the game. Sports fans in the State of Washington are the Job of Sports Fans. This is absurd, when does are day come. Here is the breakdown.

You have to foul. We have talked about this one thousand times on Locked on Sports. It is a mathmatical no brainer. If you lead by three with less then 7 seconds you have to foul. It is criminal not to and it cost Washington the game. This is a classic example of coaches coaching scared. Coaches don't foul because they are scared of the worst case scenario no matter how rare it might be. Coaches need to be smarter. In this case Lorenzo cost Washington a trip to the Elite 8 because he coached out of fear from a past experience.

The amount of mistakes down the stretch by Washington were unreal. Again we have talked all year on the coaches show about how do you maintain aggressiveness and be smart. The Huskies failed this balance and it cost them the game. Here is the sequence.

Up 6 with 1:28 left the Huskies have the ball on a rebound but in traffic Mike Jensen can't get the ball out and throws a bad pass to Dentmon out of bounds. The next play leads to Bobby Jones fouling out.
Up 5 with :35 seconds left after a Jensen miss UConn pushes it up and Jensen sags into the lane leaving UConn's best three point shooter open for a bomb.
Up 4 with :11 seconds left Jensen fouls Williams on a drive and gives up and three point play to make it a one point game. The extra point becomes the difference on the final possession. Jensen fouls out.
Up 3 the Huskies decided not to foul and we head to overtime.

In overtime, the Officials miss a goaltending, but down 2 the Huskies panicked when they got gift and threw the ball away.

The Huskies coaches did a great job with their defensive game plan. They doubled the pick n roll and forced the ball out of the hands of UConn's primary ball handlers. It was fantastic. It forced 26 turnovers and for all intent and purpose it won the game.

Jamal Williams was fantastic. His one on one game was unstoppable. He kept the Dawgs in the game when Roy was on the bench.

The real killer is that Washington played great and matched UConn every step of the way. It proves Washington was good enough go to the Final Four and they may have been good enough to win it.

UConn really struggled on the offensive end. I said on 950,KJR today that if the Dawgs controlled the defensive glass they could stop UConn and for the most part they did that.

On NBA Draft day when someone drafts Rudy Gay over Brandon Roy because of potential it will be a crime. Roy showed what a night in and night out stud he is again in this game. Gay showed how he rarely turns on the switch.

Ryan Appelby made a great steal and there was a defender in his way that forced him to curl out. It is a minor deal, but that is a great play by the UConn player. He threw the pass away and instead of sulking he quickly stepped out on the floor and cut off Appleby's path. It kept the play alive and forced the turnover. Little Things.

One of the key times of the game was early in the second half when Washington had a real chance to blow it out and they got greedy shooting long threes and missed all of them. With 17:00 left Washington forced four straight turnovers up 8 and weren't able to convert any of the four. Roy missed a drive,Jones missed a three, Williams missed a fade away and Dentom missed a deep quick three. All bad shots. Two of those and Washington would have been up 12 or more and rolling. Then two possessions later up 10 Roy missed a lay-up off a turnover that would have put them up 12. Then another turnvoer and the Huskies threw it away on an in-bound pass which lead to a Roy foul that would be costly. This was the key to the whole game.

The double techinical that knocked Roy out of the game for 6 minutes was on the upcoming sequence. The officials didn't have to call it, but it was a mistake by Roy to be in that situation.

Finally, this is another great season for Romar and Washington. To make the Sweet Sixteen in back to back years is really special. The pain comes because last year if Washington had played Louisville 10 times they would have lost 9 of them, if this year's team played UConn 10 times I think they would win 6 of them.