Evening hoops notes

Published 6:33 pm Monday, February 16, 2009

Howdy folks. Sorry for the lack of updates today, I decided to enjoy my President’s Day on the slopes.

Anyway, in case you haven’t heard already, the Huskies returned to the AP rankings at No. 22 this week, and moved up to 19th in the ESPN/USA Today poll.

The Huskies are one of three Pac-10 teams in the rankings along with Arizona State (14th AP, 11th ESPN/USA Today) and UCLA (20th, 15th).

Also, ESPN’s has the Huskies up to a four seed this week, playing UA Little Rock in the first round in Portland. Joe Lunardi, ESPN’s bracketologist (yes, they call him that) has five Pac-10 teams in the tournament in his latest projections. He’s got UCLA as a five seed, California as a six, Arizona State as a seven, and Arizona as a 12 (that would scare the heck out of a five seed the way the Wildcats are playing now).

Also, Arizona’s Nic Wise took home Pac-10 player of the week honors ahead of, among others, Washington’s Justin Dentmon. Dentmon had a nice week, scoring 48 points in a sweep of the Oregon schools, but it’s hard to argue with the pick of Wise, who averaged 26.5 points in a sweep of the L.A. schools. It is strange, however, that the Huskies are in first place but have yet to have a player named player of the week this season. More than anything, I think that goes to show how balanced this team is compared to a team like last year’s. A season ago, Jon Brockman earned the award three times, but the Huskies finished with a losing record.