The Phenom

[Wayne23]

1/3: 74-59. Early lead. They come back. Up 4 at the half. Last year we were a really good 2nd half team. That's starting to be the case this season.

Sulu had a great game, 29, 17. 12, 4 for Palt, 9, 12, 3 for Beck.

+15 RBs. We shot 46.7% to their 39.3%.

+32 in the paint.

At 11-2 Washington next. Their record would be more impressive if they had played some ranked teams. We're the first they will face. Their PF is their go to.

[Wayne23]

1/6: 92-81. We take an early lead and get it to 10 quickly. Then they come back and take the lead. Up 8 after a back and forth 1st half. They were never really out of it until the last couple of minutes.

Sulu led us with 15 and 14. 17, 10 for Beck, 18, 3, 4 for Jonn, 15, 3, 6 for Cevi, 12, 6 for Palt.

+16 RBs, 12 TOs (They had only 7). We won it at the line, 28-31 to 14-24.

Rico Beck sprained a finger. Out for about 2 weeks. Mosh will get his minutes and Moss will back up.

9-4 Washington ST is here next. They have an excellent SF; naturally, that's Beck's position. We feel like we're better everywhere else, and feel we should dominate inside.

The women remain undefeated and #1.

[Wayne23]

1/10: 94-55. Big early lead. Up 24 at the half. This was a blowout.

32, 9 for Sulu. 12, 7 for Palt, 12, 4, 4 for Cevi, 13, 4, 3 for Mosh.

+13 RBs but 16 TOs (sigh).

We shot 60.3%, 6-11 on threes. They shot 36.7%, 4-18 on threes.

+26 in the paint! +18 on 2nd chances.

11-5, 2-1 Stanford is here next. They're good outside but we should own the paint.

[Wayne23]

1/13: 76-64. Close early. Stayed close. Up 7 at the half. They stayed within view for a long time.

23, 14, 5 with 6 steals for Sulu. 19, 8, 3 for Mosh. Good guard play. They were stringer inside than expected but we out played their very good guards. We're a whole different team since we put Jonn in the starting lineup.

Only 7 TOs to their 25. We didn't shoot well; we took 20 more shots and only made 1 of them. We won it at the line, 22-9, and in the paint, +16. +10 on 2nd chances.

At 12-4, 3-1 UCLA next. We feel like we're better at every position but it's close at a couple. They have a very good bench. They've only played one ranked team, losing to then #1 Duke by 20.

It would be nice to have Beck but he's still out. Should be back after this game.

[Wayne23]

1/17: 86-76. Took us 3 minutes to score. We took our first lead 8 minutes in. Up 12 at the half. We led by as many as 15 in the 2nd. They never got closer than 8, late.

Sub Billy Rice had 18, 9 in 20 minutes. We'll need to consider finding him some minutes. 14, 3, 9 for Jonn, 13, 6, 3 for Moss. The bench had 39, 19, 5 to 18, 7, 5.

+8 RBs but 16 TOs. Our starters were outplayed inside, which is unusual, but we hit 8 threes and 20 of 25 from the line.

Alone in 1st and only USC is one back.

Next up is 7-9, 1-4 Oregon ST here. All we need to do is play our game.

[Wayne23]

1/20: 81-60. Early lead. It got to 20. Up 22 at the half. It was never a game.

24, 5 for Sulu. 19, 8 for Beck in his 1st game back. 12 assists for Jonn.

+9 RBs, 11 TOs. We shot 50%.

38-16 in the paint.

Next up is 5-12, 1-5 Colorado here. This could be ugly.

16-3, 6-0, #3, NET #1, still one up on USC.

[Wayne23]

1/24: 70-73. We're off to a slow start and they're staying with us. Still flat, down 7 at the half. We were absolutely terrible all night long, and we somehow managed to lose to the 2nd worst team in the conference at home, and we never led in the 2nd half. I'm sort of in shock. We shot 38.6%, 33.3% on threes. They shot 46.3%, and made 11 threes to our 5. The only thing that kept it close was free throws, 21-12.

Palt played well, 25 and 9, and Sulu had 11 and 12. But we were sleep walking all night.

We go to their place next.

1/25: We had practice tonight. I didn't know how to handle the horrible loss so i ignored it, pretended we'd never played Colorado, and worked on our best strategy to beat them. Maybe this is a weird way to go about things but I'm sticking to it until we play on 1/27.

[Wayne23]

1/27: 86-79 in OT. We take a small early lead. Up only 4 at the half. No idea what's going on. Overtime! Can't believe this. How can we be playing this poorly against a team that is nowhere near as talented as we are.

17, 6 for sub Car Mosh, 15, 6 for Palt, 12, 9 for Sulu, 16, 3, 5 for Cevi.

We won it at the line, 25-34 to 12-16. Frankly, we were out played.

To make a bad situation MUCH worse, Josh Jonn broke his nose and is probably out for the season (Author's note: Players usually play after a broken nose, wearing a face mask.). Evan Nash is back at the Point with Brian Evan subbing at the two guard positions.

We're now 1 up on USC and Washington.

Cal-Berkeley, 9-10, 3-5, is here next. On paper this is an easy game but the way we're playing right now...

1/29: Eddie Palt is #25 on the Norton list.

[Wayne23]

1/31: 92-59. We jump out to a big early lead, then they get back into it. Then we stretch the lead. Up 19 at the half. That's more like it. No idea what strange hold Colorado had on us but tonight we looked like I want us to look.

18, 7 for Sulu with solid D. 13, 8 for Beck, 15, 2, 3 for Cevi.

Only 6 TOs and Nash had 10 assists and no TOs in his return to the starting PG spot.

We shot 52.8%, 5-12 on threes, 11-12 from the line.

+28 in the paint.

We're up 2 games on 3 teams at the halfway point.

At 13-7, 4-5 Arizona ST next. They're better outside than in, and we should control the boards, but I'm not taking anything for granted.

[Wayne23]

2/3: 64-53. Took them over 4 minutes to score. Then they caught up. Up 1 at the half. I don't get it. It took a long time for us to get a good lead.

Sulu led us with 12 and 10, and he played good D. 8 and 13 for Palt. We won it at the line, 31-38 to 11-18, and with good D and good bench play. Our starters were not that impressive.

A season has its ups and downs. Hopefully we'll climb out of this down by the time the post season begins.

At 10-12, 5-5 Arizona. They're having a down year but don't take them for granted! They're better inside than outside.