Arizona 84, Washington 69

Went to watch today's game at The Dutchess, a mile north of the UW campus. (I know it's a mile because back in the olden days, bars were prohibited within a mile of the UW. The Dutchess, the Blue Moon, Red Robin, Dante's--they're all where they are because of that law).

My roommate and I made it in five minutes before they opened, but got a pitcher of Henry's anyway. Then, thanks to FSN, we settled in for 45 minutes of women's basketball.

The UNC/Maryland women's game went into double-overtime, but FSN never switched over to the Dawgs.

The bar was beginning to fill up, and everyone had pretty much the same reaction when they asked where the Husky game was. "WHAT! Aw FUCK!" We spent twenty minutes rooting for someone, anyone, to win the game, then started screaming at Maryland for fouling when they were clearly out of it.

When the game finally ended, did FSN go right to the game we'd been missing? No, they went to three minutes of commercials, an intro to the game, another minute of commercials, and finally, the game--which we'd missed 13 minutes of.

I called FSN to complain (425-641-0104). No one picked up. Obviously. I left a message.

In the end, we missed the most competitive part of the game. Almost as soon as FSN switched over, the Dawgs went to a zone--presumably to protect Jon Brockman, who picked up two early fouls. But the Cats kept hitting shots.

The Dawgs were hurt by poor shot selection at the end of the first half. They could've gone into the locker room within single digits, but both Quincy Pondexter and Justin Dentmon took contested shots early in possessions, giving the white-hot Wildcat shooters more chances to rip twine. The Dawgs ended up starting the second-half down 13 points, and they never got much closer than that.

Arizona ended up shooting 70% in the game. You won't win many--in fact, you won't win any--games when your opponent shoots that well. Part of it was poor rotation by the Dawgs, most of it was simply dead eye shooting.

Jarryd Bayless had 26 points, Chase Budinger had 25, the Huskies were toast.

Brockman had 24 points on 12-19 shooting.