Huskies' Growing Pains Are Painful For Our Appliances

After the Huskies' played the last five minutes of last night's game [Times, P-I, S.F. Chronicle] as if they'd been inhabited by the spirit of Mike Jensen, we got a little chippy with our Kenmore dryer and kicked the inanimate-ing shit out of it.

The Dawgs are a young team, and psychological meltdowns happen. We're not too worried about the team, they actually played terrific for 35 minutes, especially the first half when they stayed close even though the Cardinal were shooting close to 70%.

But then in the game's final minutes:

--The Dawgs stopped feeding Jon Brockman the ball inside, even though he was scoring at will.
--They had turnovers (I'll count the desperation 3 by Hawes as the shot clock ran down) on four straight possessions.
--Spencer Hawes corralled a critical rebound, then panicked and tried a one-handed pass that was stolen. He then fouled the guy who stole it, leading to a three-point play. Call a timeout, Spence!
--After the Dawgs tied the game on a free throw with about 27 seconds left, Appleby immediately fouled--maybe he thought the Dawgs were behind? Couldn't find any definitive explanation in the game stories. Romar, we love ya, but you could've substituted Adrian Oliver for defense during Pondexter's free throws.
--More Romar complaints (we love you, Romar, please don't go to the NBA, say the word and we'll never speak ill of you again). He'd used all his timeouts, so when Stanford missed a free throw that would've put them up by four, he couldn't stop the clock and put a three-shooting team on the floor. Pondexter and Brockman were both out there when it should've been Dentmon, Nelson, Burmeister, Appleby and probably Gasser.

The result of all this--the Dawgs, leading 71-66 with four minutes left, gave up a 12-4 run before Brockman's meaningless tip in at the buzzer. We still believe, but if these tough losses continue, the only happy people will be Sears salesmen.