Hello, Followers. Hope you’ve had a nice week.
As for me, well, I’ve been brewing and stewing morning, noon, and night.
To make matters worse, just when I thought I might fare pretty well with this point-counterpoint thing, my good buddy Longball simply BLEW UP his post with witty CBI references as well as funny pictures of puppies with rainbows.
So, in the end, as my Mini-Me fingers stretched to reach the far ends of the keyboard, reality hit me: This post is about LOWERING the bar.
And thankfully, I’m a professional in doing just that. So, read on.
Followers, trying to debate Longball in ANYTHING is like trying to herd a bunch of ferrel cats–even when you succeed, you wind up with a combination of scratches and ringworm.
And so, instead of trying to play HIS game, I’d just assume try to re-invent the entire playing field. So, with that in mind, here is the lead:
THE FUTURE OF KEN BONE’S TENURE AT WSU IS ON THE LINE THIS WEEKEND.
Mind you, such a bold declaration carries with it one giant assumption. And that assumption pertains to whether Klay Thompson decides to forego his senior year to enter the NBA draft. Mind you, I still think that the forthcoming lockout may convince Klay to return to Pullman for what could be a glorious, (Conference) Championship and All-American laden senior year. But in the end, I think he’s gone. And for that reason, what happens this weekend means EVERYTHING to Bone future at WSU.
As I told you last week, I thought that a 4-5 start would effectively doom the season. Without going into the gory details, lets assume that we were able to muster a 6-3 record in the second half of the year–which would leave us at 10-8. Presumably, by going 6-3, we would lose to Washington and Arizona on the road and then top that off with a loss to a team like UCLA at home. In the end, that 10-8 and 20-10 record would leave us at 4th in the conference behind UCLA, Arizona, and Washington. But, in spite of getting to that mythical 20 plateau, we still would have beaten NO ONE of consequence in our conference. So, in order to make the Dance, we’d have to win two games in the conference tourney: The first would be against CAL in a 4-5 seed game, and the second would be against the #1 seed–Washington. While I think we’d win the first, we wouldn’t win the second. Period.
So, in order to make the Dance, we’d have to go 7-2 in conference in the second half. And frankly, I don’t know how that would be possible if we go 4-5 in the first, especially in view of the fact that we would have already faced the top 2 in the conference (and lost) at home. In addition, while I sure hope that I’m wrong, I really have seen nothing from this team that would make me think that we’re going to beat UCLA anywhere–so we’d have to beat AZ or WA on the road–which is a stretch when you think that we’ve lost 3 of the 4 conference road games we’ve played so far.
Of course, win on Sunday, and EVERYTHING changes. Win on Sunday and we get a marquee win to add to the Zags and Baylor. Win on Sunday and not only does a 6-3 second half get us in the dance “fer sher”, but it sets us up for a MUCH better shot at 7-2, and within, a decent seed in the Dance.
But, as I’ve told you before, we’re not going to win on Sunday. While Longball is correct that we started to do some really good things against a man-to-man defense last Saturday against Zona, our discipline on offense is still tremendously poor over 40 minutes of basketball: We still fail to move the ball consistently, we fail to feed the post consistently, and we too often settle for wild jumpers when simply ONE MORE PASS would make all the difference in the world. Moreover, as I mentioned last week, we still can’t defend the ball worth a darn when playing either man-to-man or zone defense. And that’s too bad, because our play of the passing lanes is pretty darn good. But when you play against a fast team like Washington that can break you down, you better be able to stop the ball. And outside of Capers, Casto, and at times Lodwick, we can’t do that with any degree of consistency. And we’ll see that when Klay fouls out (or gets into severe foul trouble) against the Dawgs and Reggie/Faisel get burned for 20+. And what will probably be even more troubling than that is that we’ll probably find a way to lose on Sunday by 6 points or less in spite of it.
Now mind you, if Klay returns for NEXT year, then I have really high hopes for this group. Because, just like we burn the zones that burned us last year, I think we’ll learn to KILL man to man defenses next year. Just not this one.
So, to finish the doom and gloom, I return to the rhetorical questions of last week. IF we don’t make the dance this year, how would we make the dance next year without Klay? And beyond that, when you think about what life will be like without Capers, Casto, and Aiden in two years, well, lets just say that the trifecta of Moore, Motum, and Simon shouldn’t scare anyone that’s not in the Big Sky.
So, this is it for Bone. Win this one and the possibililties for his tenure become boundless. Lose it, and in a year or two, we’ll all look back on this Sunday as his official Waterloo.
Now onto the Keys to Game:
1) Keep Your Feet. The big X factor in this game for the Dawgs is MBA. While I have been really impressed with the development of his game, he still is suspect to throwing up a host of wild, spinning runners in the half court. If Casto can keep his feet, he can both draw a couple of charges at the same time that he keeps position to keep MBA off the glass.. Because we need Casto to outscore MBA by +6 or more to win, he will have to keep his feet.
2) Back Screen.. One of the keys to beating ball pressure is to cut backdoor or backscreen the opposition to death. So far, we have shown ourselves to be inconsistent at both setting backscreens as well as recognizing back cuts. Of course, its hard to see the backdoor when Overton is jamming the front door. Which brings me to key #2.
3) Klay and Capers, MAKE A POINT! After seeing Reggie start to get into a groove at times on Thursday and Saturday, I am even more convinced of how well he may be able to score AND distribute off the elbow. Moreover, while Overton can do a whole lot to crowd Klay before he gets the catch, I think Klay can eat him alive if he brings the ball up the court. Moreover, because Klay is so much taller than Overton and IT (and if Suggs guards him, then we HAVE to look at Capers when matched up against IT), he should be able to see over the defense to feed Casto AND the backdoor.
4) Hit our Shots. I know that his is a “duh”, but just like the best way to stop a pressing team is to keep them from scoring, the best way to beat a team that excels in transition is to make your stinking shots. This means that we are going to have to either make our three pointers OR we’re going to have to take and make A TON of midrange shots. Put simply, if we klank long jumpers or pentrate too deep into the lane, those Husky guards are going to put on a mean lay-up drill at Friel on Sunday Night.
5) Garden of Aden. Good way to close. When Aden’s on, this team is really hard to beat. When Aden, Moore, and Thompson are all on, this team is as good as any in the conference and compete with just about anyone in the country. We’re going to need to get double figures from Klay, Casto, Moore, and Aden in this one to have a chance. And a strong shooting performance by Aden gives us the best chance both to score AND keep the Huskies out of transition.
Final Prediction: UW 79 Cougs 72.
But man, I hope I am stinking wrong. We need this one SO bad.
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