Corban College

I realize it was against Corban College but that was what Husky Basketball should be and has the potential to be this year.

At the risk of saying I told you so, ladies and gentleman .... Kristi Kingma. The kid can flat out play. She's been called the secret weapon, but she's not gonna stay a secret very long. Get used to that pull-up jumper Husky fans, you'll see a lot of it for the next four years.

Mollie Williams also had some nice moments and showed some really good athleticism. That said, Mollie passing out of the paint in the 2nd half led to our first track Coach J-ism of the year "2 Feet in the paint, shoot the ball".

While Kingma was the star of the show on Monday night, the player of the week for the 2 exhibition games goes to Mackenzie Argens. Off the knee injury and not completely 100 %, those are 2 darn impressive performances. The steal and crossover for a breakaway lay-in late in the 1st half is just ridiculous for a post player to be able to pull off. Here's hoping we see some more of that this season. The importance of Argens and McNeill staying healthy and productive can not be stated enough. It is absolutely crucial for the Huskies to have sucess this season. Mackenzie also showed great hustle on a number of occasions, the first of which led directly to a Kingma bucket.

Rozier showed some wheels getting all the way to the cup for a lay-in. I like the athleticism she brings to the PG spot but the speed is only going to be an advantage against certain opponents as Stanford, ASU & Cal all have guards that can run with that kind of speed. That said, I like the different options we've got at the point and they each bring something to the table.

I thought the pressure on D was vastly improved and in particular, thought Sarah Morton did a notable job with on-ball pressure. She also showed off a sweet step-through move on a drive to put 2 points on the board. I know the step-through is a traditional post move but from a PG? Wow.

While we're on the subject of the PGs, I thought Nicole Romeo played a darn good ballgame. She absolutely skied to make a save on an errant pass in the 2nd half. How she got up for that one and came down in control without getting undercut showed great court sense in my humble opinion. I've gone 2 sentences about Romeo and not mentioned shooting. Both triples she hit were from Down Under. I had a good look at both of them and she was a good foot behind the men's line when she put those shots up and both of them resulted in nothing but the bottom of the net. As nice a weapon as it is, the value of Nicole being able to hit that shot from the PG position at the top of the key is that when she's triggering the offense, the defense has to stay honest and guard her out there or she'll take the shot. That extra foot out opens another foot inside the arc in which the offense can use.


What's scary to me (in a good way), is that as good as Kingma, Williams and Romeo looked, according to the recruiting "experts" Liz Lay is better. Given what we've seen from Kingma (who I think will make the All-Pac 10 Freshman team), how good is Liz Lay? If she can get healthy, and we get solid play from the post, things could be a lot of fun this season. If you put Kingma, Whitcomb, Lay on the floor with a post and one of the PGs it's gonna be very interesting to see who the defense keys on. One thing's for sure, it could lead to a lot of easy buckets for the posts because it is exceedingly difficult to contain 3 high caliber players and not leave a gaping hole somewhere. For certain teams in the conference, that task will prove to be impossible.

My first note for the start of the 2nd half was simply "someone made Sami mad" because all of sudden, she was everywhere, knocking down a J from the corner and making a nice drive on the offensive end and being absolutely everywhere on D. Sami absolutely is showing that she can be a go-to player. In games last year and from what we've seen from Kristi so far, they both have the ability and talent to just take over a game.

In any case, I think we're in for a lot of fun this season.

Until Sunday,

The Head Hooligan