If you read the previous post, you will see how Duckhater predicted the hardfought battle with the Beavs last Saturday. Now, take a look at this post/comment from the blog on March 9th of last year:
The Cougs uptop weave offense was pretty exruciating to watch…funny, that was the EXACT same offense that Kelvin ran when we were there….so deliberate, so awful. But, it does come down to talent…there were two issues in my book. First, Cowgill and Baynes must improve around the basket and they will with more time. Second: they must recruit a shooter and a slasher. Based on what I read from Glenn, they have a slasher–now they need a shooter a la Ike Fountaine….If Tony keeps the defensive scheme and they add one or two pieces they are a sweet 16 team. They simply didn’t have the players to keep more than they did this year–although if Lowe stays healthy they might have made a run at the NIT.That said, discipline beats bandits…so if they can add and not subtract D, they will be very, very entertaining….
And so, there we have it…we added the slasher with Weaver, the shooter in Harmeling, and with an improved Low we have a top 15 team.
The key, folks, TONIGHT and for the rest of the year is to pay attention to the issue of Cowgill and Baynes. Because we haven’t slipped on D–and when we don’t slip on D–our defensive performance from the center position is phenomenal. The reason: when our defense does not get beaten with penetration from the top (when the guard on the opposite side sags and helps), and when we don’t get beat baseline, the center moves into “shotblocking” position without having to directly contain. The result is a ton of blocked shots, bad shots, and for us, points in transition. We’ve done that A LOT this year.
But the flip side of that is O. When we get production from the 5, we move from a top 15 team to a top 5 or top 6 team.
With that all in mind, there are four keys to the game tonight, and they are:
1) Foul trouble for Clark
2) Jump shooting from two of three players: Weaver, Low, and Harmeling
3) Scoring by one member of the bench (6-10 points)
4) Scoring from Baynes or Cowgill (14-16 points combined)
Those things happen, we win tonight. To reiterate: Clark must stay out of foul trouble, two out of our three backcourt players must shoot the ball well, Hopson or Mathews needs to score a bit, and Baynes and Cowgill must score–which means they must play well in the post AND be found when our guards penetrate.
This game is either going to be a blowout loss or we’ll win…..
My pick:
WSU 65 UCLA 59
Co Cougs
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