Month: March 2016

 

For the first time in the history of the program, the University of Washington women’s basketball team is going to the Final Four. That’s a fun sentence to type.

The Huskies defeated Stanford on Sunday morning to complete a semi-miraculous run through the Lexington Regional, one that included true road wins over No. 2 seed Maryland and No. 3 seed Kentucky before toppling the Cardinal. A group that finished fifth in the Pac-12 and was unranked in the final AP poll of the regular season is now one of the last four teams alive in the country, thanks to the play of its big three and the sideline wizardry of coach Mike Neighbors. In retrospect, replacing Tia Jackson with Kevin McGuff, who brought Neighbors with him to the UW as an assistant, might be the best thing Scott Woodward ever did as AD.

In case you spent the morning hunting for Easter eggs, here are the ten best things that happened in the UW’s wire-to-wire win.

Continue reading “Cinderella Wears Plum: The Ten Best Things From Washington 85, Stanford 76”

For both the men’s and women’s basketball programs at the University of Washington, this season has been among the more entertaining in recent memory. They’ve been entertaining for different reasons, though, and Monday, March 21 marked the clearest divergence yet.

The women, seeded seventh in the Lexington Regional of the NCAA tournament, started the day off in the afternoon with a stunning 74-65 upset over No. 2 Maryland, a team widely regarded as a Final Four contender. The two keys were the UW’s play during the third quarter — the Huskies outscored the Terrapins by a 20-8 margin — and, as always, the presence of junior guard Kelsey Plum. The nation’s third-leading scorer (at 26.2 points per game) poured in 32 and dished out seven assists, helping the Huskies advance to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2001, where they’ll face third-seeded Kentucky on the Wildcats’ home floor this Friday at 4 p.m. PDT.

A few hours later, the men fell 93-78 to San Diego St. during the second round of the NIT, finishing the season with a record of 19-15. It was a contest that featured all the hallmarks of this particular group of Huskies: Spectacular plays in transition, a bevy of blocked shots, and superb individual offense mixed unpleasantly with disastrous foul trouble, an ineffective defense, and the inability to collect defensive rebounds.

It’s that first set of traits — the highlight-reel plays and the jaw-dropping talent — that have made Lorenzo Romar’s team such a treat to follow. All year long, the Huskies flew around at a breakneck pace; win or lose, they always put on a show. It was truly a unique roster, including one of the greatest scorers in school history (Andrew Andrews, who moved onto third on the school’s all-time list in his final game), the UW’s single-season record-holder for blocked shots (Malik Dime), plus DeJounte Murray and Marquese Chriss, two transformative talents who will be NBA lottery picks whenever they so choose.

Continue reading “Purple Monday: The Agony And The Ecstasy Of UW Hoops”

As a connoisseur of names good, bad, and in between, this is my annual favorite thing. NameOfTheYear.com has released its yearly bracket of the 64 best names that popped up in the news during 2016, with voting underway to determine who will follow in a line of past winners including Tanqueray Beavers, Vanilla Dong, Crescent Dragonwagon and Princess Nocandy.

Here’s the full bracket in all it’s glory:

As an excuse to marvel further at these wonderful examples of human ingenuity, I picked a Sweet Sixteen and Final Four and made some bad jokes along the way. I thought about researching who all these people actually are and what they do, but it’s much more fun to use your imagination.

Continue reading “The Ever-Glorious Name Of The Year Bracket”

This piece aims to answer one simple question: Which is the best athletic program in the Pac-12? It’s easy enough to look at the past few seasons of results and notice Oregon and Stanford are great at football, while Washington and Cal dominate in crew. But what about the entire span of Pac-12 sports, from men’s tennis to volleyball to track and field? Who’s number one?

To figure it out, I gathered the full league standings for nineteen different sports from the past four years. I then calculated each school’s average place in the standings for each year, plus each school’s overall average from the past four years combined. The primary result is a ranking of which school’s athletic programs are the best over the full breadth of Pac-12 sports. But the data includes plenty of other interesting nuggets, like which school has had the single most dominant school year since 2012-13.

Continue reading “The Pac-12 All-Sport Standings”

And now for the finale of our state-tournament recap, covering the small schools from Class 2B and 1B. We covered Class 4A and 3A here and Class 2A and 1A here to get this miniseries kicked off.

There may be one or two more things coming on the blog later this week, but this for all intents and purposes concludes our coverage of the Washington prep basketball season. So pardon the navel-gazing, but: A very major thank you to anyone who’s read anything I’ve written on this site, and a very major thank you to everyone who’s encouraged me to keep it up. I wasn’t sure what the future would hold writing-wise when I left TDN last fall, and it’s been a blast to be able to continue covering all these kids and their teams. It seems like local news organizations are just going to keep scaling back their coverage of prep sports, so hopefully, going forward, this can continue to be a place people can arrive at by random Google searches to read interesting things. It’s important stuff that a lot of people care about, and I have a lot of fun writing about it. So again: thanks for reading.

2B Boys

Results

First: Northwest Christian

Second: Mossyrock

Third: Brewster

Fourth: Life Christian

Fifth: Lind-Ritzville/Sprague

Sixth: Morton/White Pass

Continue reading “State Basketball Recap, Part III: Spokane”

To the center of the state we go for the second leg of this state-tourney-recap triathlon, where the Class 2A and 1A boys and girls battled for supremacy in Yakima.

You can find a recap of Class 4A and 3A here, and of Class 2B and 1B here. Without further ado:

2A Boys

Results

First: Clarkston

Second: Shorecrest

Third: Lynden

Fourth: River Ridge

Fifth: Tumwater

Sixth: Wapato

Recap

No surprise here — Clarkston won its second straight title. But Shorecrest made it much tougher than most people expected, battling the Bantams back and forth the entire game before Clarkston star Trevon Allen sealed a 60-59 win with a free throw in the final seconds. The Scots were a true surprise this postseason, a group that was rarely (if ever) ranked during the regular season emerging during February as the most talented team on the west side of the state. Don’t expect a repeat performance next year, though, considering Shorecrest will return to its rightful place in Class 3A. Lynden edged Tumwater 54-52 in the third-place game, the third straight thriller in a high-stress weekend for the Thunderbirds. River Ridge, the state’s No. 1 team at the end of the regular season, bounced back with two consolation wins after losing by ten to Shorecrest in the quarterfinals.

Continue reading “State Basketball Recap, Part II: Yakima”

Basketball season is so much fun, and it’s always a bit depressing when it ends — although I’ve certainly spoken to a few coaches, players, and reporters who are all ready for a break. After twelve state championships were handed out on Saturday night in Tacoma, Yakima, and Spokane, it’s now another nine months until the state’s preps will return to the hardwood.

To help pass the time, here’s a three-part post to rehash the weekend’s state-tournament action, including a full list where teams finished, a recap of how it all went down, and a sneak peek at who some of the best teams figure to be when we get back down to the business of high-school hoops next November.

This post covers the Class 4A and 3A tournaments in Tacoma. You can find a Class 2A and 1A recap here, and Class 2B and 1B here.

4A Boys

Results

First: Federal Way

Second: Kentwood

Third: Gonzaga Prep

Fourth: Union

Fifth: Curtis

Sixth: Issaquah

Continue reading “State Basketball Recap, Part I: Tacoma”

At long last, after a season’s worth of upsets and buzzer beaters, early-morning practices and long, uncomfortable bus rides, the state tournament is here. Beginning Thursday morning at 9 a.m., it all gets decided on the court.

So we’ll get right down to the last of our previews, which began earlier this week with the Class 2B and Class 1B tournaments in Spokane and continued with the Class 2A and 1A tournaments in Yakima. Now, it’s time for Class 4A and Class 3A, home of the finest teams and players in the state. This is the cream of the crop.

CLASS 4A BOYS

The matchups

Curtis (24-3) vs. Central Valley (20-5), 3:45 p.m.

Kentwood (20-6) vs. Issaquah (21-3), 5:30 p.m.

Lewis & Clark (20-6) vs. Federal Way (26-0), 7:15 p.m.

Union (22-2) vs. Gonzaga Prep (23-1), 9 p.m.

Continue reading “High School Basketball State Tournament Preview, Part III: Tacoma”

Imagine being Scott Kelly, the astronaut who on Tuesday night touched down his landing craft in Kazakhstan after spending the previous 340 days aboard the International Space Station. It was longer than any human being has ever been in space. Imagine that. Try to remember last March 25, the day Kelly launched, how long ago that feels, and remember everything you’ve done since then: All the people you’ve seen, all the meals you’ve eaten, all the times you’ve looked at a tree, or felt sand beneath your feet, or the wind on your face, all the nights you’ve slept in your own wonderful bed. Imagine if that whole time, all those many days and nights, you were instead orbiting 250 miles up above the Earth, moving at nearly five miles per second, encased in a hunk of metal.

Five thousand #sunrises during my #YearInSpace. Wish I could have seen them all! pic.twitter.com/s2Slz6NH4n

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) February 27, 2016

Continue reading “The Spaceman”

We’re back with a plan of attack for our second state tourney preview, heading now to Yakima — the Palm Springs of Washington — where the venerable old SunDome will play host to the Class 2A and Class 1A brackets.

While there are fairly clear favorites in 1A for both the boys and girls, 2A is as wide open as any classification in the state. For both genders, there are four or five different teams that have a real chance to bring home the largest piece of hardware.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. More on that to come.

If you missed Monday’s preview of the Class 2B and 1B tournaments, it can be found here. Check back on Wednesday for part three, taking a look at the big school action in the Tacoma Dome.

Continue reading “High School Basketball State Tournament Preview, Part II: Yakima”