Mark Madsen Diary #2 - 1/12/00 First, on the Arizona State game, David Moseley and Casey Jacobsen did great work in guarding Eddie House. Eddie House is a prolific scorer who scored 61 points against Berkeley. He has probably the quickest release in college basketball. He's a streak shooter. When he makes three or four shots in a row you better watch out. If he gets going, he's a guy that could get 70 on you. He is a talented player, and Moseley and Jacobsen really did a nice job of shutting him down, against Arizona State. In the Arizona game I felt like David Moseley was the reason why we were able to get back in that ballgame. He came up with two huge three-pointers late in the game and he almost won the game for us right there at the end. A guy like Dave is what we call a clutch player. At Georgia Tech when we were in overtime he gets a dunk, and then the momentum changes. Against Duke, he nails a three with one second left to send the game into overtime and we eventually win. I felt like Arizona outplayed us on Saturday. Michael Wright and Loren Woods did a particularly good job of jamming us in the paint. I know Michael, and we're friends, and I congratulate him on playing a great game. I'm glad that we get to play Arizona again later in the year. They're a great team and we want the chance to play them again. Coach Lute Olson won his 600th career game against us, at our place, and we walked out of here and we all went home and really thought about the things that we did not do in that game. And the things that Arizona did, because frankly Arizona outplayed us in a lot of ways. But we'll learn from it, and we'll be back. I'm excited about this upcoming Oregon trip. Last year, not one Pac-10 team was able to go through Oregon and win two games. The U of O and the Oregon State fans are some of the most ruthless fans in the country. They've been known to call down to Stanford, to their friends here, to dig up little details about our personal life, and then use that against us on the court. Give them credit - they make it very tough to play there. I think one year they tried to dig some stuff up on Jarron Collins. The only problem for them is there's no dirt on Jarron Collins. Jarron Collins is a great guy off the court. Being up in Oregon as a team is a lot of fun. We have these team dinners, go out, get the whole team there and the whole coaching staff. You get a guy like Jason Collins, just putting down chicken breast sandwiches, mashed potatoes, T-bone steak. The guy can eat. And then he turns around and goes out there on the court and he really takes it to people. He just takes it to people. Jason is a guy who mentally has a way of dominating ballgames, and it's rare. I think it's rare nowadays to find a guy like that who's so mentally tough, especially at the center position, but Jason's that guy. And I've said this all year long, Jason's a guy that mentally will come out and dominate his opponent, and he'll dominate the entire paint. He's not a guy who'll talk a lot of trash. He's not a guy that will yell at the opponent, but if you were in a tough situation, you'd want Jason Collins on your side. Playing up there at Mac Court and Gill Coliseum is always just a tremendous challenge. Basketball is huge in Oregon and they have some of the best and most vocal fans in the country. They just do everything they can to make it tough on us, and help their teams win. In Gill Coliseum, as the visiting team, they put us in some locker room about five floors beneath the playing court. So we're down in this dungeon: there's no sunlight down there, very little ventilation. And we're down there as a team, knowing that when we come out of that tunnel, it's going to be us against the world. Up at Oregon State, it's an agricultural place. There's no professional team up there - Portland is about an hour and a half away, I think. So the basketball game is The Thing to do in town. So you get these fans coming in there - this is one of the major events up there. So you take the court, and they take no prisoners. They'll get on Mike McDonald or someone in warm ups, and he'll talk back to them, have a little fun with them. You know it's going to be tough going up there, both nights. Hopefully it will be a good road trip for us; hopefully we'll play well. It's still early, obviously, but the Pac-10 is really shaping up as a tough league. Any team in the Pac-10 can win a championship. Any team. Any team can win any night. For example, you look at UCLA losing at Washington, but USC getting a road sweep up there. I look at USC as the darkhorse, with Brian Scalabrine and Sam Clancy, Brandon Granville, Jeff Trepagnier. They're the type of team that's capable of winning in bunches. The USC team has enough confidence and enough swagger to walk into Arizona and win, walk into Arizona State and win. They're tough, they know how to win and they're fun to watch. So I think USC's a darkhorse. Arizona's in the driver's seat right now, and hopefully we can bounce back and change it. |