Washington 1/10th of a Second Too Late

Search FanHouse

Resources

FanHouse RSS Feeds

Email our editors with your tips, corrections, complaints, inquiries, suggestions, etc.

Posted Dec 9th 2007 12:14AM by Charles Rich
Filed under: Pittsburgh Basketball, Washington Basketball, Big East Basketball, Pac-10 Basketball

Washington had 4.3 seconds to get the ball the length of the court and get a shot off to beat Pitt, 76-75. Unfortunately, they took 4.4 seconds. It was that close.

Justin Dentmon took the inbounds pass and went the length of the court and launched a runner in the lane. At first it looked like he got the ball off just in time, but then the officials started looking at the replay. Quickly, it became apparent to most that the ball was still in his hand as time expired. Still, the officials took a long five minutes to evaluate the replay. Finally the officials waved off the basket and Pitt escaped Seattle with a 75-74 win.

This was a big win for Pitt as they got their first win outside of Pittsburgh and have their record at 9-0. Pitt was able to overcome some horrible shooting in the first part of the game. They shot 7-25 through the first 14 minutes, but closed the half with 7-8 shooting and shot almost 61% in the second half.

For Washington, the good news was that Ryan Appleby returned from a broken thumb and showed that he is still one of the best spot-up three-point shooters in the country.
Appleby shot 6-12 from outside and made 4 of his first 5 threes. Having Appleby back, really opened things up for Washington as Pitt couldn't pack things in against the larger Husky frontcourt without fearing a kickout for an open 3. Brockman found a lot more room to operate once Pitt had to fear the consequences of doubling him.

The bad news is that Washington not only had it's 31 game non-con home winning streak snapped, but that Washington already has to fear for its chances of making the NCAA Tournament. One tough loss to a good team is not a killer. The problem is that the Huskies are 4-4 with their best win coming against Utah. They have losses to Oklahoma State, Syracuse and Texas A&M.Their only remaining marquee non-con will be against LSU.

That means Washington will have to exceed all expectations in the Pac-10 portion of the schedule. For a team that was expected to be in the lower half of the conference, this makes things look grim.