SEATTLE — Venoy Overton started learning about playing Husky basketball long before he played his first game or attended his first practice at Washington. As a freshman and sophomore at Seattle’s Franklin High School, Overton would play pick-up games with Washington players from Seattle like Nate Robinson and Will Conroy.
Now Washington’s starting point guard, Overton is trying to bring back what those players made a staple of Washington basketball.
He’s trying to bring back an edge that seems to have been missing too often during the past two seasons. Trying to bring back the swagger, the toughness and the nastiness that Conroy himself noted was absent when he attended a recent Husky loss.
“Growing up I was always around them guys,” said Overton, the only Seattleite on Washington’s roster. “I always talked to Nate and he was always like, ‘You’re going to be a Husky one day.’ I grew up around them guys so that’s why I try to have that little edge like they did. I kind of just picked it up being around them and playing with them.”
That edge is something that Lorenzo Romar and his players have talked about throughout this up and down season. In some games, such as wins over
UCLA and Arizona, the Huskies have played gritty, inspired basketball. Other times, however, that edge has disappeared.
“We need to get that fight, that fire in our eye and keep it,” said Joel Smith, who played on NCAA Tournament teams as a freshman sophomore. “We’ve had times when we’ve had it, then we didn’t. A couple of games where we just bring it all the way, then we don’t bring it … [Overton] brings that fire to the game. He’ll get talkative if need be. He gets after it a lot … He’s definitely one of them Seattle guys that keeps that fire going.”
Though he is still adjusting to the college game, Overton has shown in spurts that he could be the guy to bring nastiness back to Washington basketball. Like Conroy, Overton knows how to get under an opposing guard’s skin by playing suffocating defense. Just ask Oregon State’s Seth Tarver, who had to be restrained by teammates after he and Overton got tangled up battling for a loose ball earlier this season. Or ask Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless, who wore a look of frustration throughout his team’s loss in Seattle.
Early in that game, Overton fouled Bayless, who had words for his fellow freshman after getting up. Overton’s response:
“It’s not going to be an easy night for you tonight.”
Playing against one of the nation’s top freshman that night, Overton had his best game of the season, scoring 19 points without a turnover while harassing Bayless on the defensive end.
His intensity in that game seemed to carry over to other Washington players.
“That definitely can rub off,” Romar said. “I think it rubbed off on our guys against Arizona … I think it’s something that will be one of his traits.”
Romar hopes that as Overton’s game matures and grows, that trait will manifest itself more often, and that games like the win over Arizona will become the norm for his point guard.
“As a freshman you’re learning so much,” Romar said. “So many things are new to you. When you think a lot, it can paralyze you on the basketball floor. When you get to the point where you’re not thinking, you’re just playing, then you see a whole different player. There have been times this year when the game was a little more up tempo, a little more spread out, and he wasn’t thinking at all, he was just playing.”
Overton said his on-court attitude is something he developed as a youngster playing in Portland, then Seattle, where he moved as an eighth grader. It was honed in those pick-up games with Washington players, and now he’s trying to bring that attitude back to Washington.
“I try to bring that to the team,” said Overton, who has started 21 of Washington’s 28 games this season. “That’s the lifestyle I grew up in, so I just try to always be the tough guy. You’ve got to try to punk somebody before they punk you, so that’s kind of my attitude. That’s just the way I’ve always played.”
Holiday still out: Justin Holiday will be sidelined again this week, Romar said. Holiday, a freshman forward, suffered a knee and ankle sprain in practice two weeks ago and has missed the Huskies’ last four games.
Romar said he hopes Holiday can return to practice by Monday.
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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