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Stacy Patton? Not tonight.

That was insane.

Can we pen our contract with ESPN now? Seems like when they come to town, we blow the roof off the arena.

You could pick almost any moment in the game and call it your favorite.

Maybe it was pregame, when Quincy Pondexter was honored on Senior Night.

Maybe it was late in the first half, when Isaiah Thomas knocked down three straight three-pointers. (Inspired, Isaiah?)

Maybe it was early in the second half, when Pondexter threw down a breakaway circus jam.

Maybe it was in the closing minutes, when the Sherrer Explosion went off.

Could be any of those moments, or many more.

For me, it was when Coach Bob Knight mentioned that UCLA’s Reeves Nelson looked like Apollo Creed. That was fantastic.

Go Dawgs!

The first time I saw Quincy Pondexter play ball on the floor of Hec Edmundson Pavilion, I remember thinking to myself how lucky Husky fans would be if he ended up spending four years at Washington.

Physically, the 6’7″ Fresno native passed every type of look test imaginable for a college basketball player. With a long, lean, mature build, the great leaping ability, and above-average quickness, Quincy appeared to be the prototype when it came to the small forward position.

In Quincy’s first season, I remember the relative lack of hype surrounding the quiet freshman, thanks in large part to Spencer Hawes. Hawes was the crown jewel of that 2006 recruiting class and absorbed all the hype for the quartet of newcomers that found their way to Montlake; small forward Phil Nelson (now at Portland State) and shooting guard Adrian Oliver (now at San Jose State) rounded out the foursome.

As a fourth-year member of the Dawg Pack that season, I had a front row seat to all of the Huskies’ games in that turbulent ’06-’07 campaign, and saw up close and personal the rapid development of Quincy Pondexter.

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A moment-by-moment analysis of Tiger Woods’ oral recital.

“Good morning, and thank you for joining me.”

A pleasant beginning, but we’re not here for tea, Tiger. Perhaps we should be thanking you for joining the rest of us after your three-month hibernation. You’re like a grizzly bear in that way.

“Many of you in this room…”

Fill in the blank.

…have sexted me.

…have seen my Blasian side.

…have tag-teamed strippers with me.

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Dawg Pack Dirt: UCLA

Volume 6, Issue 20, February 20, 2010

Special to Seattle Sportsnet

*Editor’s note: Join us on 950 KJR AM Seattle Friday night at 7:20 p.m., and again at 8:20 p.m. as we discuss the Washington-UCLA game, with a focus on the Dawg Pack!

Also, if you’re interested in contributing to next year’s Dawg Pack Dirt, we could use a few underclassmen to carry on the tradition as our current Dawg Pack correspondents will be graduating this spring. Please send us an email if you’re interested. Thanks!

The long wait is over and it’s finally here. ESPN’s College Gameday will be doing their infamous show from Hec Ed. That means that all of ESPN’s famous basketball media personalities will be present and we need to be absolutely crazy. This game really doesn’t deserve any hype, but this is our chance to show on a world stage just how insane the Dawg Pack is.

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Isaiah Thomas is Stacy Patton.

Stacy Patton, for those of you who don’t know, is a character played by the late Malik Sealy in the movie Eddie.

In the film, Patton is a ballhog who plays for the New York Knicks, has a ridiculous contract, and gets his ass benched by Eddie, the team’s coach played by Whoopi Goldberg. Upon being removed from the lineup, the Knicks go on a winning streak thanks to the team ball that results from Patton’s benching.

Isaiah isn’t kinda, sorta, a little bit like Stacy Patton. Isaiah IS Stacy Patton. So much so, that I refuse to refer to him by any other name besides Stacy Patton from here on out. For the rest of this article, Isaiah Thomas will only be acknowledged by the name “Stacy Patton.” Here goes.

Stacy got sat down tonight for what would equate to the entire fourth quarter of play, and the Huskies went on a fantastic run. Overcame a double-digit deficit and nearly won a ballgame that they should have lost going away. This team, in its current structure, plays better when Stacy Patton is out of the lineup.

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A feature article in the current edition of Sports Illustrated, just released today, pays homage to Seattle’s established basketball scene.

For years, the Emerald City has produced some of the nation’s finest basketball talent, and that talent is finally being recognized on a national level in this piece.

Basketball lovers and Seattle sports fans alike should get a kick out of reading about the hometown kids making it big in college and the NBA, and there’s even a chunk of the article devoted to the up-and-comers in the prep ranks.

Print edition readers will enjoy a couple insets that give a brief breakdown of some of the impact players from the region. Unless you’re a subscriber, the print edition will not hit newsstands until early next week.

I only have two small gripes with an otherwise well-written story.

One, the writer fails to make a big deal out of Rainier Beach’s Doug Christie (a guy we chose as the No. 2 greatest Seattle-area basketball player of the past 20 years in an article from January of ’09), who was arguably the first player of the current generation to reach the NBA.

And two, SI seems to get the impression that Blaine might very well be a suburb of Seattle. Which it is clearly not. Other than that, a great article. Give it a read!

The Dawg Pack will begin a two-night campout starting this evening, in preparation for Saturday’s game against UCLA and the arrival of ESPN Gameday.

On a Jonathan Higgins side note, I remember my first time camping out for a basketball game. Stanford, 2004.

It was a cold evening, and in the middle of the night some Cardinal fans drove past and threw things at us. Some of us had no tents, including me, and in the morning I awoke to a homeless man standing at the foot of my sleeping bag. The very first Dawg Pack campout. Those were the days.

Anyway, if you are a local proprietor and want to help make this event a success, please stop by Hec Edmundson Pavilion on the north side of the arena anytime following the conclusion of tonight’s Husky basketball game against USC. Drop off food, drinks, and anything else that spirited college kids would enjoy on a chilly winter night and you won’t walk away disappointed.

Finally, if you work for Red Bull, now might be your greatest opportunity ever to pull in new consumers. I know how you guys love to send out your workers and hand out free drinks. Why not stop by on Friday night with about a truckload. These guys could use the energy. They’ll be spending 12 hours going crazy on Saturday and will need “wings” to get through the day (see that, I even plugged your slogan).

So help them out. They’ll love you for it, and I’ll even talk about you guys more than I already do. People listen to me. I’m kind of a big deal.

Good news, Husky fans!

ESPN College Gameday has created a Facebook event for this Saturday’s Washington-UCLA game, and they’ve asked me to get you informed.

The party starts at 7:00 AM on Saturday, and all ESPN asks is that you spread the word to as many people as possible to get them to RSVP to the event and to show up to the real thing at Hec Ed on gameday.

Also, be sure to tune in to 950 KJR AM on Friday night as I join Brian Abker and discuss Saturday’s game. We’re tentatively scheduled to chat around 7:20 PM, and we’ll be joined later on by a few special guests.

This is a HUGE day for the University of Washington and the entire Husky fan base, so make sure to keep all your friends up to date on this event!

Go Dawgs!

Like a person who still puts the “is” in their Facebook status updates, NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage is ball-itchy annoying. And by ball-itchy annoying, I mean the type of itch you get on your balls that you can’t scratch because you’re in public.

In less than a few hundred characters, NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage IS horrible. Which is kind of like saying that the tetanus shot you received to treat the rust in your system from the knife wound was painful. Because as we all know, the Winter Olympics (the JayVee Olympics, as I call them) are barely tolerable to begin with. And then Bob Costas comes along and makes it worse.

Unless you’re a ski bum or really, really enjoy figure skating, where’s the appeal in the Winter Olympics? Three-quarters of the world couldn’t care less about this two-week event. Snow? What the hell is snow?

I’m a firm believer in the self-righteous nature of individuals, and there is perhaps no greater self-righteous rite of passage than the fan-dom of the Winter Olympic games.

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With pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training on Thursday, February 18th, Seattle Sportsnet will be providing a preview of the 2010 Seattle Mariners in various stages over the next six weeks. This is our first installment in the series of previews.

With FSN analyst Nicole Zaloumis leaving the station’s Northwest affiliate for what we can only assume are greener pastures, Mariners fans will be left hanging when it comes to one behind-the-scenes interview we all were pining for: the Fister-Zaloumis exclusive.

There’s no doubt in my mind that a proper dressing-down at the hands of Ms. Zaloumis would have exposed the hard truth behind starting pitcher Doug Fister, a player that many Seattle faithful are curious to learn more about. As it is, we’ll have to discover more about the lanky right-hander on our own. And that’s fine, too.

A candidate for the Mariners’ vacant fifth-starter position, the 6’8″ Fister (or “Fisty,” as I like to call him) is a 26-year-old native of Merced, Calif., who was originally selected as a college junior by the New York Yankees in the fifth round of the 2005 June Amateur Draft. Thankfully, the Fresno State alum returned to school for his senior season and was chosen a year later in the seventh round of the ’06 draft by your very own Seattle Mariners (in your face, you pinstriped bastards).

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Click here to watch Rece Davis’ Gameday shoutout to UW

There’s no getting around the fact that Saturday’s men’s basketball game between the Huskies and the UCLA Bruins isn’t nearly as anticipated as it was six months ago.

The Huskies haven’t lived up to their early-season hype (going winless on the road until last Saturday will do that to you), and the Bruins have been a young team struggling to find their rhythm all year long.

ESPN probably wasn’t counting on such a lightly-heralded matchup when they scheduled their Gameday crew to appear live from Hec Edmundson Pavilion on the day of the contest.

But, as is the case, the Gameday crew will be broadcasting from the home of the Dawgs all day on Saturday and are doing anything and everything they can to generate excitement for this matchup. Which leads us to the above video.

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Remember when Floyd Landis was supposed to be the next Lance Armstrong?

Lance pulled a Michael Jordan, embarked on a semi-retirement, and left us with this Scottie Pippen impostor who wasn’t worth the yellow spandex he covered his ass with.

After a victorious ride through the 2006 Tour de France, Landis had his championship stripped due to doping allegations, all but sealing his fate as a fraud.

In a sport tainted by drug scandal in recent years, Landis took the Roger Clemens route to redemption, vehemently denying all charges of steroid use and fighting to clear his name until all circuits of court had been exhausted. Ultimately, he remained a loser, a cheater, and a purported drug user. Shortly thereafter, Landis, like Clemens, disappeared off the face of the earth.

Four years later, Landis’ name has resurfaced in connection with a French computer hacking case that has ties to the drug scandal of ’06.

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Warren Moon

More than just a characteristic of the roster, a jersey number can often come to define a player. Or, in many cases, a player can come to define his jersey number.

Either way, there have been thousands upon thousands of athletes who have competed at the highest level of sports in this city, and only a handful of those are worthy of being dubbed “the greatest.”

As means of tribute to some of the best players in the history of Seattle athletics, we’ve chosen the greatest local sports stars by each and every possible jersey number, from 0-99.

They’re all here, and while some digits may be up for debate, others are not (like No. 24, perhaps).

If you feel like someone has been left off the list, is undeserving of the honor, or simply doesn’t fit in, let us know in the comments section.

Likewise, if you want to share your memories of your favorite player and favorite jersey number, feel free to do that as well.

Without further ado, on to the list.

0 – Joel Smith, Husky Basketball

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