DOWN WITH PANTS!

The Washington Huskies men's basketball team routed Westmont College 92-52 last night at Hec Ed. The game was an exhibition game before the Huskies tip off for real on November 19th against Seattle Pacific. The Huskies outscored the Warriors 49-23 in the second half after struggling in the first half. Brandon Roy scored 22 points to lead the way.

They didn't look very good all game long. Even when they came around in the second half they still weren't playing very well. They just wore down the NAIA kids who were outmanned in every way and got a ton of easy shots. They struggled in the first half to break the zone defense of the Warriors and looked lost offensively for much of the game despite scoring 92 points.

I was most disappointed with the play of Mike Jensen. He had a solid game offensively knocking down a few outside shots but it was his rebounding that made everybody in my section scratch their heads. He was crashing as hard as he could to the boards and taking out other players in better position. Him and Brandon Roy seemed to just be in each other's way the entire game and I was getting worried that Jensen was going to hurt somebody. I like aggressive play on the boards but come on Mike, get it together. Let the guy in the best position get the rebound.

I was really impressed with Freshan Joel Smith who scored 10 points and Jamaal Williams, despite not playing a whole bunch, looked like he will be solid. The bench looks like it's going to be strong with Tre Simmons and Hakim Rollins coming off early and Smith, Williams, Brandon Burmeister, Hans Gasser all being able to contribute when need be.

I'm sure that the Huskies looked bad only because they were trying some different things and treated the game as practice as opposed to a real game. I'm still geeked about this season. I'm going down to the Arena this afternoon to pick up a few more tickets. Most likely I will have tickets to every game except the Houston game on Christmas Eve Day which is my fiance's birthday so it's probably a game I will have to miss. For those of you not in the Seattle area you can catch the Huskies on ESPN2 against Utah on November 25th in the Great Alaska Shootout.

P.S.....I forgot to mention that the Huskies are going to be missing guard Will Conroy, Bobby Jones, Williams and Simmons for the opener against Seattle Pacific because they participated in an unsanctioned basketball competiton over the summer. This shouldn't have much of an impact considering SPU is a mediocre Division II team but you never know. Simmons will also miss the Utah game on the 25th because he played in two games while the others only played in one.