Wierd.

I’m glad you enjoyed.

Look for it.

It’s so far-fetched it’s silly.

Last year, Dentmon was the one driving to the basket and dishing out to Appleby, who’s offensive game was limited to jump shots. Dentmon had to take much more difficult shots himself. This year, it is Thomas doing the driving and kicking, and Dentmon is benefitting with open looks. His efGs has shot up from last year, from 47.9 to 56.6. No one becomes that much better of a shooter over the course of an offseason. He is just getting better looks because of the attention Isaiah is drawing.

Without going too much into this statistically, more anecdotally:

Home vs. Baylor – Overall we did pretty well against the highly regarded backcourt, not giving up easy shots and making them work on defense. We felt okay about losing this one but we would have felt terrible if only we knew how mediocre Baylor eventually turned out to be. If Rochestie shoots better than 3-14 we win that game.

Home vs. Gonzaga – Pargo absolutely brutalized us, getting 11 points on 5-7 shooting with 10 assists. Mainly Rochestie guarding him if I recall correctly.

Home vs. Washington – Thomas and Dentmon lit us up, and below average games from Brockman and Pondexter were more than enough to cruise to victory. We stuck with TR and Nik guarding those two for most of the game, with Klay taking turns. It was just frustrating to watch how easily we were broken down. Capers got 6 minutes.

Home vs. Cal – We held Randle in check thanks to solid D from all our guards, but unfortunately Christopher went off on us. This was becoming a pattern, we could do okay focusing on a couple guys but we didn’t have great team defense yet.

At Oregon – We won, but not because we shut down TP. Mostly it was a solid effort by the whole team to win the boards and punch it inside. Nik’s minutes are starting to slip in favor of Capers.

Home vs. UCLA – We guarded everyone but Drago the first half very well and it took a great performance from Caleb to keep us in the game. Capers played solid D on Collison until the end of the game, when great players do what they do. We tried several different guards on Collison in the last few minutes but to no avail.

At ASU – Harden is bigger than most of the guards that had been giving us problems, allowing Klay and Casto to take turns guarding him. We did this very well, and Rochestie / Capers did enough on Glasser and Kuksis (sp?) to gut out a victory. However the real story was Klay shooting 8-10 from 3, which obviously energized our whole team, perhaps contributing to the stellar defense.

At Arizona – Rochestie and Nik did a pretty good job on Wise. We lost that game more because Hill and Budinger played excellently than anything else. Oh, and we had as many turnovers as assists and only shot 7 free throws. I thought this was when our defense started to come together, and our bigger problem was our inconsistent and timid offense.

At Cal – more or less a repeat performance of the last Cal game. Randle had a better game this time around. Capers barely got off the bench and the sound of Jo-Jo ripping his hair out was heard as far away as Denver.

Home vs. Oregon – totally shut down everything Oregon wanted to do, allowing only 5 assists the whole game. What a great win!

At UCLA – Collison had a good game by the numbers but couldn’t create quite as much in the closing minutes as he did in Pullman. Note that Capers played the last seven to ten minutes of the game and even if he wasn’t the one guarding Collison all the time, overall our team defense was better. This was also when Baynes and Casto really started clicking together on the interior, and this game wouldn’t have been close if not for insane 3 point shooting by UCLA at the end.

Home vs. Arizona – this time Wise actually did better against us in the first half, but Capers totally shut him down the second half. The one clear time I remember him getting beat was when Wise ran into the tank that is Casto and went down for a couple minutes. Arizona’s offense stagnated as the guards completely shut off penetration, and the only real offense came from Hill.

Home vs. ASU – basically the same as before, but this time Glasser played better against Rochestie as Capers took much of the responsibility guarding Harden. Klay also guarded him, and the improvement in Klay’s on the ball D over the year started to really show up.

I kind of got carried away with this, sorry! Basically, the last few weeks we have really gotten better at keying in on certain players and shutting them down. The problem we will face with UW is that they have multiple threats and it will take great team defense to keep them all at bay. I feel confident that Capers can limit IT’s effectiveness. In terms of stopping his one on one penetration, I actually think Klay would be the best choice, though IT probably would lose him on screens more often. Capers has gotten really good at running through / around screens and unless IT hits his mercurial outside shot more often than not, Capers can be very effective. I’m sure if you want serious numbers, someone else can put them up.

Now that’s just crazy talk.

That’s why we need to shut down Thomas.