Despite seeding, Huskies playing like favorites
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Cinderella will be dressed in dark colors later today.
She’ll be carrying a double-digit seed, bringing a roster filled with non-scholarship overachievers, and carrying the flag of a small conference that hasn’t gone this deep in an NCAA tournament since 1979.
Cinderella will be just as obvious as she always is this time of year.
The East Region No. 13 seed Cornell Big Red of the brains-over-brawn Ivy League certainly fit the profile. But before they take the court for tonight’s game against top-seeded Kentucky, Cornell’s media darlings will watch a less conventional Cinderella team take the court at the Carrier Dome.
The Washington Huskies are an atypical version of the proverbial David, and they’re out to knock off another Goliath tonight. No. 11 seed UW (26-9) will face No. 2 seed and eighth-ranked West Virginia in an East Region semifinal, with a chance to advance to the elite round of eight for the winner.
“Right now we know that, the way we’ve been playing basketball, we can play with anyone in the country – no matter what the media’s outlook on it is,” UW junior Matthew Bryan Amaning said of the Huskies’ role of giant-killer. “I know we were confident even though we were the underdogs in the last three games we played (wins over Cal, Marquette and New Mexico). … So we’ll just come out with the same amount of confidence we had in the past, and hopefully we’ll be able to get it done.”
Other than the Huskies’ seeding, these Dawgs aren’t your typical underdogs.
They come from a power conference in the Pac-10, they’ve been to five of the last seven NCAA tournaments, they were ranked 14th in the preseason national AP poll and their starting lineup includes one McDonald’s All-American, another top-50 recruit and another guy who was the Washington state player of the year as a junior in high school.
The difference of nine seeding spots is fairly rare during the Sweet 16. Only that late game between No. 13 Cornell and No. 1 Kentucky has a bigger disparity in this week’s field.
The last time a team seeded nine or more spots lower than its opponent won a Sweet 16 game was 24 years ago – since then, 21 underdogs have gone by the wayside – and the last one to even come close was the 1998 UW team, a No. 11 seed that lost 75-74 to second-seeded Connecticut.
With nine consecutive wins under their belts, the Huskies are feeling as confident as any team left in the tournament. They certainly don’t feel like underdogs.
“Throughout this run, I think we have gained a lot of confidence,” UW senior Quincy Pondexter said, “because we’re starting to see us playing right. And when that happens, it just gets you anxious to play that next game and continue for (the tournament) to go on.”
Tale of the tape
Washington |
West Virginia |
|
| 26-9 | Record | 29-6 |
| 11- 7 Pac-10 (3rd) | Conference | 13-5 Big East (2nd) |
| None | National ranking | No. 6 |
| No. 11 | East Region seed | No. 2 |
| Beat No. 6 Marquette, 80-78 | NCAA first round | Beat No. 15 Morgan State, 77-50 |
| Beat No. 3 New Mexico, 82-64 | NCAA second round | Beat No. 10 Missouri, 68-59 |
Note: both teams won their conference tournament
Common opponents
| Won, 73-64 | Texas A&M | Won, 73-66 (n) |
| Won, 89-54 | Portland | Won, 84-66 (n) |
| Lost, 74-66 (n) | Georgetown | Won, 81-68 and 68-58 (n) |
| Won, 80-78 (n) | Marquette | Won, 63-62 |
| 3-1 vs. common opponents | Total | 5-0 vs. common opponents |
(n) = neutral site