The Unkown Huskies

Tomorrow is the start of the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Everyone wants there to be that Cinderella team who comes out of nowhere to do some damage in the tournament. Last year Davidson was that team and a couple years back it was George Mason. Will so much talent in the Big East and ACC this year, everyone expects teams from these divisions to dominate the tournament. Besides that people like Oklahoma and Memphis but I am here to give you a team that I feel can do some damage and make it to the Final Four.

The Washington Huskies are the number 4 seed in the west region. The teams opening game is against Mississippi State who has Jarvis Varnado who is having his own block party with all the blocks he has been piling up. The Huskies can get past the dominate defense with their stellar guard play which will propel them to the next round of the tournament. Next up for the Huskies would more than likely be the Purdue Boilermakers. At the end of the regular season the Washington Huskies were ranked 14th in the ESPN today poll. This team out of the Pac Ten is going to be a tough out in the tournament and will match up well with Purdue who in my opinion underachieved in the rather weak Big Ten. I say they underachieved because they were only 11-7 in conference play and will watch the Huskies advance to the Sweet Sixteen. I see Washington coasting by in the first two games and not having to exert much energy into those games giving them the opportunity to perform against Connecticut. Jerome Dyson was important to the other Huskies and will hurt there chance but I will say that AJ Price has stepped up his game. Washington is a great offensive rebounding team which leads to second chance points. This might be slightly lower with Thabeet in the middle but the Huskies of Washington have a full court press that will be sure to wear down AJ Price. Connecticut looks past this game and looks forward to the anticipated matchup against Memphis but instead the game will not happen. So that leaves me with Washington against Memphis which will be the biggest challenge yet for them. Memphis had four games this year that were against good teams and they were, Xavier, Georgetown, Syracuse, and Gonzaga. The only game out of those four that they won was against the Zags and I am afraid they have not played a tough schedule and thus are untested. Washington wins a slugfest and advances to the Final Four.