Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Maui Invitational Day One Recap Day Two Preview

The Maui Invitational is off to a great start. On Monday we saw some great games including Wichita St. losing a heart breaker to Uconn and Michigan  St. squeaked by host Chaminade.

Washington also defeated Virginia tonight by a final score of 106-63. It was a very good shooting clinic  from the whole team as the Huskies shot 17-26 from the field from 3-point range as a team. However, the game tonight should not be over hyped. Virginia is underachieving just a bit to start the year. Kentucky will be a ligament team that should give Washington a headache on the offensive end as well on the defensive end. These two teams also have a little bit of a rivalry going on.


The Kentucky - Washington rivalry was not born on the court like most rivalries or it was not even born during the regular season. It was born on April 30th 2010. A day I will flash you back to.

Friday, April 30th, 2010. The Texas Rangers were in town for a three game weekend series at Safeco Field. Starting Pitcher Cliff Lee was going to make his Mariners debut that night and I was very excited. The Mariners had played 500. ball for the first part of the season but so had the rest of the AL West. As a true Seattle sports fan I had my Mariners Jersey that day. During last the last block of the day I was not thinking of school work. I was thinking of Cliff Lee. I knew he was a great pitcher and I thought he could take us to the World Series.

The day got even better when I went on the computer after school. Washington had just signed two highly scouted recruits. Terrance Ross and Terrance Jones had signed a letter of intent to go to Washington. Immediately I knew that this team had turned into a Final Four type team. With Cliff Lee going for the Mariners this could turn out to be a really awesome day.

The day however did not end well. Cliff Lee pitched 7 brilliant innings. His counter part that day was C.J. Wilson who also pitched extremely well matched zeros with him the hole night. The Rangers ended up wining that game 2-0 in 12 innings. The Mariners season started to go down the drain and so did the idea of having Terence Ross and Terence Jones on the same team was as well.

The Mariners season ended in a failure and so did the Jones-Ross saga, Mid way through June Terence Jones changed his mind and signed with Kentucky.

Now, four months later, Washington gets a shot at redemption.  A Huskies victory over a youthful yet very talented Kentucky team would put the team at a national stage. Every team wants to beat Kentuky but for Lorenzo Romar and the Washington Huskies it would be even more special.

The Huskies will have to play a pretty solid game to beat the Kentucky. An 106-63 win over a less then impressive Virginia team may look good. However, Kentucky is at a way higher level then Virginia and the turnover numbers have to be lower as Washington committed nine turnovers today. That is a number that has to be a touch lower if Washington wants to pull off the slight upset.

In the end it will be Kentucky that will come away with the nail biting victory 78-73 in overtime. Washington has had a lot of heart breaking loses over the past five years and this one will be no exception. Brandon Knight will have a big game and so will Terence Jones who had 29 points and 13 rebounds. Jones will have the dagger in Overtime. I also have a feeling the refs will not be on our side as well. The game tips off at appox. 6:30 Pacific time and can be seen on ESPN2.


Other Notes.

Uconn beat Wichita St. 83-79
I was still at school didn't watch this game.

Kentucky defeated Oklahoma 76-64
Kentucky was way too strong for Oklahoma. Whenever Oklahoma made it close Kentucky would go on a run to widen the lead. Brandon Knight and Terence Jones provided a good one-two punch.

Michigan St. beat Chaminade  82-74
For a while Michigan State was on upset alert. But Chaminade didn't have the depth to compete and the Spartans slowly pulled away late in the second half.


Today's Games.

Chaminade against Wichita St.   11am tip
I think it will be hard for Chaminade to get up for this game after being so close to the upset tonight. Wichita St. by about 10.

Oklahoma against Virginia     appox.   1:30 tip
What team is worse? I think Oklahoma will be full of confidence from staying within 12 points. Tony Bennett will have a hard time getting his players ready after giving up 106 points. Oklahoma by 15.

Michigan St. against Uconn    appox.     4pm tip
We will see if Michigan State had a bad game or  if they're not playing good basketball right now. Uconn will give them a run for their money but the Spartans will prevail. It will be closer then the experts think.


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