Saturday, February 17, 2007

Close but No Cigar....Pitt beats UW

Washington played pretty well today, and Spencer had his best rebounding game of the year which was nice to see, but in the end the Huskies lost because they can't handle the ball well enough out on the perimeter. Turnovers once again played a big role, as well, as UW lost 16 to just six for Pitt and the Huskies just couldn't get enough shots to fall.

Washington's talented but inexperienced front line of the 6-foot-10 Hawes and 6-7 Brockman teamed to shut down Aaron Gray, who didn't score or get a rebound for the first 10-plus minutes of the game. Gray, averaging 14.8 points, had scored in double figures for five consecutive games.

But with Gray and 6-10 Levon Kendall (four points) doing little at either end of the court, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon went much of the game with a smaller but quicker lineup in which 6-6 sophomore Young took Kendall's place and the 6-1 Ramon played guard. Young and the 6-4 Cook gave Washington matchup problems, and they helped Pitt rally and take a 31-28 halftime lead even with Gray neutralized.

Washington still hasn't beaten a top 10 team on the road since defeating Kansas on Dec. 14, 1974, losing 32 in a row over than span.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

jb, i thought this was one of the better games the team has played all year. No quit, lots of imtensity, esp on defense. They are so close, too bad the light bulb didn't come on 10 games earlier. They can win out if they play like they did tonight. An enigma of a young team.

John Berkowitz said...

Yep, they played a good game, but they really need to bring in a guy to play the point.

Does this knock them out of it, no, but they need to win the next four games to have a chance and go seep in the tourney. A very tall order.

It was only a couple of years ago when .500 was a challenge, so even though this year is a little dissapointing I still get a lot of entertainment following these kid's.