Washington Basketball Hosts a Terrific Tourney This Weekend

This weekend’s Athletes in Action Classic at Hec Edmundson Pavilion would be worth checking out even if the #14-ranked Huskies weren’t playing.

All four teams competing won 20 games last year. Washington, Portland State and Belmont all made postseason tournaments. Each team will play each other team in a round-robin format, with two games each night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The three non-Husky teams in Tweet-sized bits:

Wright State’s Todd Brown

Wright St. Raiders (Dayton, OH): Slow-tempo WSU return four starters from team that took Horizon League winners Butler down to the wire in league championship game. 6’5″ G Todd Brown shot 40% from three. Play Huskies Friday.

Belmont Bruins (Nashville, TN): Fast-tempo team missed NCAA tourney last season for first time in five years. Now they graduate four starters and look to be rebuilding. Young team with 11 frosh or sophomores. Play Huskies Saturday.

Portland St. Vikings (Portland, OR): New coach is Tyler Geving after Ken Bone left for Wazzu. Also gone: top scorer Jeremiah Dominguez. JC transfer Melvin Jones (a Sealth grad) and UW transfer Phil Nelson must pick up the scoring slack. Play Huskies Sunday.

Each of these games should be a good one. Washington/Belmont on Saturday will likely be a blow-out, but could be the most fun game to watch since both teams play at such a fast pace. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the Dawgs drop 100 in that game.

I’m most looking forward to Friday night, which should have the two most competitive games. Tickets are $20/27, though you could probably talk a scalper down below that.

Here’s the full schedule.

Friday 11/13:
Belmont vs. Portland State, 4:30pm
Washington vs. Wright State, 7pm (TV: FSN)

Saturday, 11/14:
Portland State vs. Wright State, 4:30pm
Washington vs. Belmont, 7pm

Sunday, 11/15:
Belmont vs. Wright State, 4:30pm
Washington vs. Portland St., 7pm (TV: FSN)