Month: February 2016

I’m a believer in writing-as-therapy, so consider this a self-prescribed session on the couch in hopes of getting over Washington’s heartrending home defeat on Saturday against the ‘Cats — a game that would have been very nice to have for a team that’s fighting for an NCAA tournament berth and will spend the rest of the season trying to make up for home losses to Oakland and UC Santa Barbara in December, which …  see, I’m getting upset again. Time for some optimism.

1. The audacity of youth

At one point in the first half, Marquese Chriss went up for an attempted dunk over Arizona center Kaleb Tarczewski that, if completed, would have perhaps been the greatest moment in the history of Hec Edmundson Pavilion, a building that has hosted presidents. (Fine, maybe second-best behind Nate Robinson’s alley-oop against Arizona in 2004). Later, DeJounte Murray had a clear path to the basket on a two-on-one break, but instead tried a behind-the-back dribble that resulted in a turnover and, shortly thereafter, two points for the Wildcats.

In retrospect, it would be easy to point to these two plays and think, man, those two missed opportunities could have been the six-point swing the UW needed to win. But to do so would be to miss the point.

Continue reading “The Ten Best Things From The UW’s 77-72 Loss To Arizona”

The period of time I spent waiting in line to get into the gym at Lynnwood High School on Friday night was longer than the period of time that the game between the Royals and visiting Glacier Peak was actually competitive. And I didn’t even have to wait that long.

All those hundreds of people were there to see what was on paper the last, best chance for AP No. 1 Lynnwood (19-0) to be challenged during the regular season. When the two teams played up in Snohomish on Jan. 13, the defending 3A state champs narrowly escaped with a 60-54 win — to date, the only time this season their margin of victory was fewer than 14 points.

But this time around, on senior night at Lynnwood, when perhaps the two greatest girls basketball players in school history were on their home floor for the penultimate time, the Grizzlies never had a chance. Lynnwood jumped out to a 24-10 lead after the first quarter, which swelled to 49-25 shortly after halftime and 63-29 with 2:11 left in the third period. The final margin was 79-49, according to those who stuck around to watch the fourth quarter. I was not one of them.

Continue reading “Royal Gains: Lynnwood Girls Thrash GP, Stake Claim As State’s Best”

Three years ago, the Lakeside boys basketball team was one measly point away from a state title. If star guard Tramaine Isabell had converted the front end of a one-and-one with one second left in regulation of the Class 3A championship game against Rainier Beach, the relatively small, extremely wealthy private school on the Seattle-Shoreline border would have won it all in Washington’s toughest division.

But Isabell missed the free throw, and the Vikings went on to a 62-59 victory in overtime to earn their second straight crown.

Seventeen months later, reporter Mike Baker of The Seattle Times published a lengthy investigation of the program’s surprising rise to prominence. The findings weren’t pretty. Lakeside, the Times alleged, had been a party to a series of WIAA rules violations and other unsavory activities, including illegal recruiting through the A PLUS Youth Program, a basketball nonprofit run by Lions head coach Tavio Hobson. The school had also relaxed its admissions and eligibility standards for basketball players and provided unusual benefits to some of its stars, including Isabell, whose driver’s license listed as his address the $6 million lakeside home of Rich Padden, a lawyer and prominent booster of Lions athletics. At the center of the Times story was former Microsoft CEO and future Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, whose three sons all attended Lakeside and who, it was alleged, had catalyzed the school’s newfound commitment to athletic excellence.

Continue reading “The Last Lion: Isiah Brown, Steve Ballmer, And Lakeside Basketball”