Time to Panic

I started a running commentary of the Super Bowl and half way through realized that I wouldn't be able to finish it because of my fatherly duties. Besides that, it really sucked ...you know really fun stuff like alternate programming on the other channels, how Fergie officially killed anything left to GnR, A-Rod and Cameron Diaz making the nation vomit and of course, how boring Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are.

Anyways, I decided to stay away from the Super Bowl and instead talk about UW basketball. Wait, I take that back...not talk about UW basketball, but rather sound the panic alarms about UW basketball.

I saw the loss to Washington St coming. After all, it had all the makings of a trap - rivalry game in a crazy environment that was extra ravenous because of comments by Isaiah Thomas and Matthew Bryan-Amaning the week before. Their was no way the Cougs weren't going to come out fired up.

At the time, I convinced myself that 15-3 in conference was still a very real possibility. After all, the Huskies were the best team in the conference. The loss at Wassou was only a blip in the radar. Then they went to Oregon St, a frisky Jeckyll and Hyde team, and laid an egg. Still I assumed that when we were 14-4 at the end of the year and looking back at our season, the two game slide would simply a distant memory.

And then the unthinkable happened. We went to Oregon and lost to a crap team in green. In doing so, the Huskies now sit a full two games behind conference leaders Arizona, which means that beating the Wildcats on the road in two weeks won't be enough. We will need the 'Cats to slip up to another conference foe and we will need to run the table.

I don't know what the problem is with the team (I actually haven't been able to watch any of the previous two games), but I am freaking out. We are now 15-7 on the season and 7-4 in conference. We have only beaten one top 25 team on the year and will only face one more for the rest of the season. If we don't turn things around immediately, 7 conference losses could be staring us in the face. Entering the Pac-10 tournament with 19-10 record and an RPI of in the 50's, we might be at risk of missing the tournament if we get tripped up.

This is absolutely shocking to think about. I am in total panic mode.

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On the positive side, the Bison bounced back from their 20-point thumping to Army with a 25-point win over Navy. I was more shocked than upset when they got ambushed in West Point. I wasn't expecting it, but I don't think it's the worst thing. Getting a beating by a team that was below .500 in conference is a good wake-up call. Starting the season 6-0 in conference is obviously awesome, but for a squad that hasn't experienced such heights in a few years, it would be easy to let things go to your head. You start taking shortcuts and don't work as hard. So now it's out of the way, well before conference tourney time. We still have our two rivals, American and Lehigh at home so I think 13-1 is a real possibility.