<div align="center">#24 <font color=""Purple"">Washington</font> @ #7 <font color=""Red"">Arizona</font> When?January 4th, 2007 Time?10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM Pac Where?All FSN's (Except FSN Detroit) <font color=""Purple"">Washington Starters</font>: (Justin Dentmon, Adrian Oliver, Quincy Pondexter, Jon Brockman, Spencer Hawes)</div> Washington Keys to Game: ---<u>Keep the pace under control</u>: There's no way the Huskies could keep up with Zona while playing Brockman and Hawes, arguably their best players. Keep the pace down to earth so they can keep Brockman and Hawes in the game. If they can't do this, it'll be another long night. ---<u>Husky Hawes</u>: Use your stud freshman as much as possible against a very short big man rotation that Zona uses. Hawes should be the main offensive threat the way he's been playing, but can he keep it up against Lute's 1-3-1 zone? ---<u>Husky Pups</u>: UW starts 3 freshman with 2 sophomores, a very young team. Can the youth of Washington play on the level of Arizona's great talent? The Huskies were blown away by UCLA at Pasadena last week, and lost a Overtime thriller against USC. Can they take that experience and get a win in Tucson? <div align="center"><font color=""Red"">Arizona Starters</font>: (Mustafa Shakur, Juwann McClellan, Chase Budinger, Marcus Williams, Ivan Radenovic)</div> Arizona Keys to Game: ---<u>Silent in Seattle</u>: Keeping the crowd out of this game early will be important for Arizona. If they can keep from getting rattled, they could take a big lead early and never look back. Whenever Zona can get going, they tend to go on runs. ---<u>Chase-ing Budinger</u>: Budinger has been a big part of Arizona's success so far. When he's hot, Zona can't lose. But he's been inconsistent, going off one minute and being non-existent the next. If he can get a few baskets to drop early, watchout UW. ---<u>Cage the Dogs</u>: The Huskies have an advantage inside the paint with two very good work horses while Zona only has Radenovic. Arizona needs to press and use their mythical 1-3-1 zone to give UW different looks all night. The 1-3-1 is a big part of this strategy because it will force Brockman or Hawes to get the ball farther away from the basket. Prediction: UW is 0-2 so far in Pac-10 play, so they need this one badly but going to Tucson doesn't help. Arizona has won 11 straight since losing the season opener to Virginia. It's Arizona's home opener for conference play, so the crowd should show up to be loud. I say: <font size=""6"">67</font> <font size=""6"">76</font>
Nice preview, I haven't been impressed with the Huskies this season. They have two weapons in the post with Hawes and Brokman, but their guards do a terrible job of giving them passes they can handle in the post. Appleby, Oliver, Poindexter and Dentmon all settle for the 3 ball far too, often, and Washington lacks a penetrator with a mid-range game. Arizona should be able to literally run the Huskies off the court tonight. In the UCLA game, the Bruins used quick substitions to keep the pace of the game at a high tempo, which tired out the Huskies starting five. The Bruins depth and athleticism took over in this game, once fatigue set in for Washington. They made careless passes, which led to UCLA dunks on the other end. Zona has the depth, team speed, and athleticism to use the same strategy against the Huskies.
Glad it's on FSN! Nice preview, I can't wait to see this game live. Two teams who could both surprise late in the season. And who doesn't want to see Hawes vs. Buddinger? Two of the best freshmen in a decade in the Pac 10
Quincy Pondexter is a MAN. He's got 20+ for the Huskies, and both teams made huge runs in the first half. It's Washington 51, Zona 48 at the half. Should be a fantastic 2nd half!
UW goes on 22-4 run then Zona answered with a 15-0 run, one hell of a game so far. Budinger needs to step back up, like I said in the preview, he just fades in and out of the game, then Zona suffers. So much for my preview's score, I almost got the halftime score right...... BTW--Hawes is a stud!
Zona wins 96-87, I got the final score right if you add 20 to each team's score. Key to the game was getting Hawes in foul trouble......and those 3's we made. JMac and Shakur carried us in the end.
