Jon Brockman Constipates the Husky Offense

My roommate's been touting this theory all season that Jon Brockman's ubiquitous presence in the post prevents the Huskies from running the slash and dish offense that worked so well in their glory years.

I'd been dismissing him until Saturday's Cal game.

Brockman was in foul trouble most of the game, forcing the Dawgs to go with a non-traditional lineup featuring Joe Wolfinger at center.

This non-traditional lineup was incredible.

In the 23 minutes that Brockman played, the Huskies scored 39 points.

In the 17 minutes that Brockman didn't play, the Huskies scored 47 points.

In case you want that mathed-out, that's 1.7 points per minute with Brockman, 2.8 points per minute without him.

Now--in fairness, Cal shared in the offensive fiesta with Brockman on the bench.

But we all know that Romar recruits speed and athleticism--skills that are much less important when you're playing a halfcourt game.

When they were running, the Dawgs were much more comfortable...and starting to remind me of a wonderful local team of the past: the 1996 Sonics.

Three point shooting center? Sam Perkins = Joe Wolfinger

Scoring point guard? Gary Payton = Justin Dentmon

Three point specialist shooting guard? Hersey Hawkins = Ryan Appleby

Athletic post? Shawn Kemp = Matthew Bryan-Amaning

Long small forward? Detlef Schrempf = Quincy Pondexter

It was a thing of beauty, watching the Dawgs move up and down the floor, playing in rhythm, getting a combination of threes and drives, and not feeling the need to feed the ball into Brockman at every opportunity.

The run and gun style wouldn't be nearly as effective against a more athletic team like UCLA or Arizona, but it sure worked against Cal...and could work against Wazzu, too. It'll be interesting to see if Romar deploys his Brockman-less lineup a little bit more against the Cougars.

It's interesting to note that the Huskies' three year winless streak against the Cougs coincides exactly with Brockman's arrival at UW...before he came the Dawgs had won four in a row against Wazzu.

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One more thing on Brockman...it's a Player A, Player B thing.

Player A
17.0 ppg, 11.0 rpg.

Player B
20.6 ppg, 11.6 rpg.

Player A is Kevin Love.

Player B is Jon Brockman if he hit free throws at Love's rate (74%) instead of his own (52%).

That's not even counting the extra free throws he'd get from hitting the front end of one-and-ones.

If Brockman could only get his free throw situation under control, his agent would be able to tell NBA teams he's got a guy who's a 20 ppg scorer in the best conference in the country.