Arizona Loss Opens Door for Huskies

When the Washington Huskies basketball team started their season in mid November, they had high expectations. One of those expectations included winning the Pac 10 regular season title. In fact, the Huskies came into the season as overwhelming favorites to win the Pac 10 regular season title, 34 out of 36 media voters even picked the Huskies to win the regular season title.

However, inconsistent play in late January to early February put the Huskies in a deep hole to meet that expectation. With UCLA's 71-49 upset over the Wildcats today the Huskies still have a flicker of hope of grabbing that #1 seed in the Pac 10 tournament.  That would be something the Huskies have only done one time in school history. The Huskies have won the regular season title more than one time but in those years there was no Pac 10 Tournament.

Personally, I would be very surprised if the Huskies caught  Arizona. Arizona will have to lose once at home for the Huskies to catch the Wildcats. The last time Arizona lost at home was February 21 2010 against Arizona State.

Nevertheless, the next three games are really important to Washington because of their RPI. According to http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_Men.html the Huskies RPI is 36. A teams RPI can go higher with quality wins or drop down with bad losses. Losing games at home most of the time are bad losses. Therefore, it's important that the Huskies take care of business tonight.

The Huskies opponent tonight is the Washington State Cougars. The Cougars have gone in the wrong direction following their 87-80 beat down of Washington in Pullman on January 30th. The Cougars come into the game with a 17-10 record and are 7-8 in the Pac 10. If Washington State wants to have a slim hope of getting an at large bid they must win three in a row to end the season. Remember, no team has ever got an at large bid with a below 500. record.

I'm not sure if Klay Thompson found his Ipod last week, but if the Cougars are going to upset the Huskies today Klay Thompsom will have to find his game in Seattle. In his two career games in Seattle he has a total of 16 points.  He will have to carry his team to victory and likely score 20+ points if the Cougars want a realistic shot to win tonight.

My Pick.... 

The Washington Huskies have have been a very dominating team at home this year and I don't expect that to change. Even thou the Cougars are a good basketball team, they don't have the depth to keep up with Washington. With Washington's fast pace style a play they should be able to ware down Ken Bone's Washington State team. Furthermore, the Huskies will feed off the energy of the home crowd on their way to a 89-74 win.

The game starts at 7pm and is on FSN.