Forgiving Brandon Roy

I hate the Washington Huskies, this is not a new story. Then the Blazers drafted super rookie Brandon Roy and hopefully forever altered the franchise. This created somewhat of a dilemma for me, avid Husky hater, cheering on arguably the best basketball player ever for Washington. I don't hate their basketball team nearly as much as the football team, in fact it's given berth to a new remarkable turn of events in which you can be heckling a Husky and they bust out "we're a basketball school now anyway" and they're dead serious. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I promise we'll get to the big win last night shortly, but I need get this out in the open of how I have come to forgive Brandon Roy and that I no longer see a Husky when he's on the floor.

First a little background, my freshmen year in school and one of the first Duck games I saw live was the Kenny Wheaton game. I saw the Pat Johnson corner of the end zone game in Husky Stadium. I've got a picture on my fridge of when I turned my chair around in the middle of a party and refused to watch the game until they put Clemens back in (The Fife Debacle). I even attended the Husky win over Miami in Husky Stadium with the Dorsey family, the wife's family is family friends with the Dorseys. Husky Stadium was every bit as nasty that day as it always has been for us up there. I lived through Skippys Reign of Terror as well, and my fantasy football league's divisions are the Brock, Damon, and Skippy, because no 3 people did more for Oregon football than the Huard Brothers and Skippy, seeing as how he systematically destroyed their program.

Now, Brandon Roy is on one of those promos they run where you're supposed to get to know him better. He's very well spoken, friendly, confident, a marketing dream. On the promo I saw the other night there was this exchange:

Interviewer: What's your favorite sport other than basketball?
Roy: College football. I love college football.
Interviewer: And your favorite team?
(Lochi picks up magazine and prepares to deposit it against the wall with extreme prejudice)
Roy: The Miami Hurricanes.
(Lochi falls off the chair laughing his ass off)

Yep, that's a kid who grew up in Seattle, spent 4 years at Washington, and his favorite football team is the Miami Hurricanes? Nothing I can say or do to mock the Husky football program could possibly have a bigger effect. Thank you Brandon, you are no longer a Husky to me.

**************

The Blazers simply crushed the Lakers last night. They led by 8-15 points most of the second half, with only one dicey section. It was just a domination by Z-bo, who's been nothing short of an animal inside this year. He went for 36 and 11 but it felt like about 50 and 25. All of his points were of the physically dominating variety, the demoralizing low block easy bucket.

The Mamba is clearly not right, he's not nearly as explosive as he will be in a few months.

My streak has ended, I'm now 4-1 picking Blazer games, the board Moderator is 2-3 however. I'm not terribly sure where the team goes from here. I can't really believe they're 3-2 with New Orleans and Dallas coming to town. They have a very rough November, this was covered in our season preview, but I'm starting to think if they can get out of this month at .500, well, we might have to start talking about some crazy things. None of that talk now though, just enjoy the ride.