Sabel's Haus

What an unbelievable game last night. The Cats went down to Gonzaga in overtime 61-59 in the championship game of the EA Sports Maui Invitational.

UC was up most of the second half by around seven or eight points. The Zags kept closing the gap and eventually tied it. The play of the night was in the final seconds of regulation when Lance Stephenson threw a lob pass to Yancy Gates near the rim. Yancy went up to lay it in and was clearly hacked. The replay was clear as day it was a foul. No call and we go to overtime.

Obviously it should have been called but at the same time I don't know how many times a referee calls that in that situation. They try to let them play but when it's that blatant you have to call it.

UC should have won the game so the loss will sting, a lot. Still, this team needs to build on the very good things they accomplished in Maui. We'll see next Tuesday night (Dec. 1) when they play Texas Southern if this loss is going to stay with them. They grew up right in front of our eyes in Maui and they are going to be a good team and potentially great.

I think Mick will have them ready though and will make them forget about it.

Some other game notes:

Yancy Gates is, as Brent Musburger put it last year, a manchild. He dominated again and he'll only get better.

You started to see last night how much of a competitor Lance Stephenson is. He was mouthing off a little last night.

Dion Dixon should not have been shooting last night late in the game. I love Dion and all but he missed two 3's in key possessions last night where they didn't need a three ball. And even if they did need a 3-pointer, he would be about the third or fourth guy on the team that would shoot it.

I thought Deonta should have had the ball in the last possession in overtime instead of Cashmere. Cash had a bad night shooting going 2-for-8. Obviously they're both great players but Deonta is your senior leader and you have to get him the ball. There was only ten seconds left though when UC grabbed the rebound after a missed Gonzaga free throw. They were down two with no timeouts so Yancy passed it to Cash who ran the floor and got a good shot off but just missed it.

The thing I loved about last night and this tournament in general was how UC is starting to get their swagger back. They are playing like the old Huggins teams that were, for lack of a better word, bad asses. They play a great swarming defense and really start to frustrate the other team.

Like I said, they'll be fun to watch this year.