DOWN WITH PANTS!

MONDAY UPDATE....First, the good news. The Huskies moved up to 14th in the AP poll and Nate Robinson was named the Pac-10 player of the week. The bad news is that Brandon Roy will miss four to six weeks with a tear in the meniscus of his right knee. He will have surgery on Tuesday.

The Washington Husky basketball team looked very impressive playing three straight games against quality opponents winning the Great Alaska Shootout on Saturday night. They beat Utah on Thursday night78-71, then took down Oklahoma 96-91 on Friday and closed out the tournament beating #19 Alabama 79-76 on Saturday night in the championship game.

Nate Robinson was incredible showing the athleticism and game changing abilities that make him so dangerous. He scored 29 points against Utah, 19 against Oklahoma and 16 against Alabama. His scoring was down a bit against Alabama but he stepped up when he needed to taking over the game in the final ten minutes. What was great to see was how the crowd in Anchorage warmed up to him throughout the tournament. In the championship game, even on TV, you could sense that everytime he touched the ball the crowd sat up and started buzzing. He has a star quality about him that trickles down throughout the entire team. Just his presence on the floor makes this team better even when he isn't playing his best.

The only bad news to come out of the tournament is that Brandon Roy suffered a hyper-extended knee in the Oklahoma game and will be further evaluated on Monday. The ESPN analysts made it sound like it could be pretty bad and that the Huskies were not optimistic. They speculated that he may miss as much as two months. I actually think that missing Roy for a month or so wouldn't hurt the Huskies too much. They have a ton of talent in the backcourt that can fill in for him. Robinson, Tre Simmons and Will Conroy will just have to step it up like they did against Alabama on Saturday. It will also give players like Joel Smith and Jamaal Williams the opportunity to play a little bit more in some big games and help them develop an even deeper bench for when Roy returns. Just as long as he's back for Pac-10 play, I think the Huskies will be fine.

The Huskies take on Gonzaga, who got murdered by Illinois today (the Zags didn't look terrible, Illinois just looked like the best team in the country), on Wednesday night in Spokane. The game will be televised on FSN. Their next home game is against Eastern Washington on Sunday. If anybody who reads this has an extra ticket please let me know. It is the only game I couldn't get tickets for that I wanted to go to. You'll probably see me outside of Hec Ed with a finger in the air asking everybody if they have one extra ticket.