Former Husky Nate Robinson has obvious disdain for Buzzer Beater. How do we know that? Because ever since we declared him the front-runner for Sixth Man of the Year and added him to our fantasy team, he's reverted back to undersized, no-position, aimless gunner mode. Worse yet, he's not even the Knicks sixth man anymore -- Al Harrington is -- and he's played less than 20 minutes in each of the last two games, both (rare) Knick wins. And since you were wondering, he is no longer a member of my fantasy team, Gobias Industries.

What do we know about this year's Husky hoop squad, 14 games in? A lot, actually. First and most positively, the addition of Isaiah Thomas, whose pinball drives are reminiscent of Allen Iverson, should put the Huskies squarely on the NCAA tourney bubble come March. Also, Jon Brockman still can't shoot free throws, Matthew Bryan-Amaning is still soft and inconsistent, and the Huskies' halfcourt offense still features too much standing around, too many clear-outs, and not enough utilization of low-post talent. Finally, Quincy Pondexter is playing better this year -- and when he plays well, the Huskies can play with anybody in the conference, if not the country. But when he doesn't play well -- and he played horribly this past Saturday against Cal at Hec-Ed -- the Huskies are infinitely vulnerable.

Actually, Saturday's game, the end result of which was a gut-wrenching 88-85 triple overtime loss, was a perfect snapshot of what happens when everything goes wrong with Romar's charges. The 6'9" Bryan-Amaning failed to grab a single rebound in 36 minutes, Brockman was 2-8 from the line, Pondexter looked awkward and indecisive and scored just one point in regulation (he finished with five), and the Dawgs' overtime offense consisted almost entirely of spreading the floor and letting Justin Dentmon go to work on his man.

In spite of such tomfoolery, were it not for a pair of startlingly ill-timed and-one fouls heading down the stretches of the multiple final frames, the Dawgs would have won, thanks largely to the first-half play of Thomas and Dentmon's ability to get to the line in the second half. But they didn't, and to make matters worse, they dumped a game at home to a team that will likely join them on that bubble come March. It's losses like these that stick out if a team misses the tourney by a win or two. Remember this one, folks, because if the Dawgs end up in the NIT, this loss will have been a big reason why.

The Dawgs' new defensive coordinator is a super meatball, which we love. Here he is barking at USC's linemen during drills.

Quincy says, "I played awesome!"

UW 68, WSU 48

In Voltaire's famous satirical novel, Candide, there's a character named Pangloss, a stupidly optimistic man who in the face of widespread death and suffering continues to insist that we live in "the best of all possible worlds." But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Pangloss would've been correct to point to today's UW/WSU game as evidence of the world's just and proper functioning.

This was the Husky team we've been waiting for years to see. The guards pressured and pushed the ball without making stupid mistakes. The forwards used athleticism to control the paint. The team hit its free-throws and three-pointers. Quincy Pondexter exploited his myriad talents and hard-earned physical strength to play a remarkably well-rounded game. Even the broadcast was terrific, with the peerless Kevin Calabro doing the play-by-play. 

Most importantly, WSU coach Tony Bennett's attempts to slow the game down backfired. With about 2.5 minutes to go and Wazzu down 12, Bennett instructed his athletically overmatched/unable to rebound players to foul the Huskies and make them hit free throws. An understandable decision--albeit an unusually early one--but few hoop fans can enjoy a seemingly endless sequence of cheap fouls, free throws, and timeouts.

Similarly, while self-proclaimed purists love to wax righteous about the Princeton offense and the beauty of back cuts, blah blah, I don't think too many fans care for the Bennetts' slow-it-down/grind-it-out/feed-the-oaf brand of ball. Give Tony credit--he's not an ideologue, and seems open to running when his team has the legs. And obviously he's had a lot of success as a coach. But for basketball fans everywhere, I'm hoping the Cougs' current brand of grind-and-grab achieves little success.

Thus it was particularly satisfying to see Bennett's hack-a-Husky strategy backfire, with the Dawgs going on a 13-5 run highlighted by an entertainingly gratuitous off-the-backboard alley-oop pass from Justin Dentmon to Quincy Pondexter.

While today's game raises question marks about the quality of the Cougs, here's hoping that the Huskies can carry the poise and marksmanship they displayed in Pullman through the rest of the Pac-10 season. If they can, they'll have no problem getting themselves invited to the Big Dance. 

You may remember Bob Sapp--he was a star football player for the Huskies in the 90s, winning the Morris Award as the PAC-10's top offensive lineman. After his gridiron dreams failed, he became "The Beast," a mixed martial artist, professional wrestler, and all-around celebrity phenomenon in Japan. Steve Kelley did a great piece on Sapp's story here.

Today, Sapp is fighting Kinniku Mantaro as part of the Fields Dynamite! New Year's Eve promotion. Mantaro is actually an anime character from the series Ultimate Muscle, though he'll be played by a Japanese wrestler named Akihito Tanaka. I'm still trying to figure out if this is history's first live man vs. anime character fight. Either way, it's impressive. Go get 'em, Beast!

Photo of MacCulloch at pinball tournament from Pinball News.

The Washington Post ran a great story yesterday on how former-Husky Todd MacCulloch has immersed himself in competitive pinball after a nerve condition in his feet forced him to retire early from the NBA. H/t to True Hoop.

Trailblazer Brandon Roy isn't the only ex-Husky having a breakout year in the NBA. His former teammate, Nate Robinson, is also averaging career highs for the Knicks in virtually every statistical category, and is an early favorite for the league's Sixth Man of the Year Award, provided Nate-Rob's new coach-made-in-heaven, run and gun enthusiast Mike D'Antoni, can keep him out of the starting five.

Ex-Dawg star Brandon Roy dropped 52 points on the Phoenix Suns last night. Nate McMillan called it a "quiet" 52 points. Classic. B. Roy's been en fuego lately, for those not paying attention, making a strong case that he's just a whisker behind Kobe and D-Wade in the pantheon of NBA off-guards.

Twenty-one-year-old Donnie Cheatham, who played with Venoy Overton at Franklin High, was shot in the face last night in front of Garfield Community Center, apparently because he had information regarding a fatal shooting a few weeks ago at Vito's. According to the P.I., he's being treated at Harborview but his condition is not known (Overton's already paid Cheatham a visit). The glut of suspected gang-related gunfire around town now feels eerily reminiscent of the early '90s. Scary stuff, folks, and it touches us all.

Assuming this ad is legit, former UW sharpshooter Ryan Appleby will give you four private basketball lessons for the low, low price of $200. Among other things, Appleby will teach you "how to be a finisher around the goal" and "attack the basket while jumping off one or two feet to maximize your explosiveness and power." Curiously, these are skills the one-dimensional three-point specialist seemed to have no interest in mastering himself during his Hec Ed tenure.