How you doin’ Cougar Nation?
Hope you’re having a great start to your week.
Well, after being accustomed to the great rantings of Uncle Sedihwak each Tuesday, homeboy had to go fire up a three day set of all day meetings in the A-T-L.
So, I’m pinch hitting for him this week.
That said, because I already AM a total moron, I’m going to replicate Sedi’s great work by simply doing what I do:
Be REAL dumb.
With that in mind, here we go:
IS Taylor Rochestie an NBA player?
A couple of months ago, I would have told you absolutely “NO!!!!!!!” But after watching him over the last couple of weeks, I am not so sure. Granted, there have been times that he has tried to do too much. But, if you put that aside (and the context which creates it), why not consider his upside?:
1) Fantastic conditioning and stamina
2) Very good on-the-ball defender
3) Solid ball handler
4) Changes speeds well
5) Shoots fairly well on the move
6) Has Decent Range
7) Has a high assist-to-turnover ratio
8) Comes from a winning program
For BH, that’s a lot of upside. Moreover, after seeing my non-main-man Jose Barea play a couple of times over the last two weeks
I can tell you that I like Taylor’s chances even more. After all, Barea now plays about 21 minutes for the Dallas Mavericks even though he stands at only 6 feet, has no hops, and really doesn’t defend that well. But, he shoots well and distributes.
If Taylor wants it, I think there’s a two or three year roster spot for him somewhere in the league….
———————————————————————————-
So, Andy Pandy Katz says that there is NO WAY that WSU can make the NCAAs as at large team.
I only half agree with him. There’s NO WAY that we can make the NCAAs. But if we did, it would be AS AN AT LARGE TEAM.
Although the pundits don’t agree with me, none of them are lifetime wanna-be-bracketologists.
And that’s why they’re actually paid sportswriters.
In my opinion, the magic number for this group is FIVE. That’s right FIVE.
Win five games before our exit in the Pac-10 tournament and we dance for three years in a row. Consider the four ways we could do that:
1) Win one regular season game and then win the Pac-10 tournament. Result: we’re in. (but we can never win 4 games in 4 days with Taylor playing 38+ minutes a game. That will NEVER happen).
2) Win two regular season games and then reach the Pac-10 tournament final. That winds up being 11-11 in conference and 19-15 overall. That’s a bit of a stretch because of the Taylor fatigue factor, but it also probably gives us 4 wins over ranked teams in the seasons final 2+ weeks. Result: with a soft bubble, we sneak in.
3) Win three regular season games and then win two games in the Pac-10 tournament. Result: we finish 11-10 in conference and 19-14 overall. Lots of losses there to be sure. But, depending on how the conference splits over the next two weeks, we would have road wins @ASU, @UCLA, and @UW. Plus we’d have home wins over AZ & ASU, plus a neutral court win over ASU, UW, UCLA, or CAL depending on the split.
That’s “in” folks, no matter how anyone else wants to cut it. Twelve seed here we come!
___________________________________________________________________________________
Since winning the 2008 Washington Sportswriter of the Year Award, our main man Vince Grippi has been tearing up the blogosphere. Yesterday, he did his best Uncle Remus post:
In that post, Grippi describes the happenings of the song birds in his yard.
And in other days, well, he does what Vince does:
He reports.
Its not that I dislike Vince’s reporting ’cause god knows I WANT TO BE GRIPPI and I troll the internet hourly waiting for what he has to say.
But I think that I echo the sentiment of many in Cougar Nation in asking Vince to give a bit more of himself. Like, give his opinion early, often, and FOREVER.
Take yesterday’s post an example. In that post, Vince talks about the rat-race that the Pac-10 has become.
Vince, what I WANT in a post like that is for you to tell us what the hell is going to happen in that race, not provide some vague metaphor for how the race relates to the Robins and the snow!
So tell us what’s going on inside of YOUR BRAIN instead of just telling us what’s going on in general.
It’s YOU we’re interested in Vince.
It’s you!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
