Overton will check “traffic on the ones” next time
You know the feeling: You’re driving to some important event, via the quickest and most obvious route, during a time when traffic shouldn’t be an issue, when suddenly you’re in a bumper-to-bumper disaster. Last time it happened to me, it was during bike dropoff the day before the Danskin Triathon. Fit ladies, I demand 30 minutes of my life back!
In the case of Washington guard Venoy Overton on Sunday, it was the Seattle Marathon that made him 30 minutes late for shootaround before Washington’s basketball game against Montana. As a result, Overton was on the bench at tip-off for the first time this year.
“I knew I probably wasn’t going to start,” Overton told the Seattle Times‘ Percy Allen after the game. “If I was like five minutes late then I thought I would be good, but I knew I wasn’t going to start tonight.”
Overton was one of the first subs off the bench, and deployed his typical mix of aggression and risk-taking. A steal and lay-in early in the first half was nice. An attempted alleyoop to Darnell Gant, not so much.
At game’s end, with Washington up three points, Overton found himself guarding Montana’s Anthony Johnson, the leading scorer in the Big Sky conference. The 6’3″ Johnson elevated for a three-point attempt above the 5’11” Overton. But Overton timed his leap perfectly and blocked Johnson’s attempt.
It’s tremendously rare to block a jump shot, let alone the jump shot of a league-leading scorer, let alone a jump shot by a guy who’s four inches taller than you. But Overton managed the feat; not only that, he secured the ball, took a foul, and hit the game-clinching free throws.
Overton’s block gives him an early highlight for his Pac 10 defensive player of the year reel. And it secures a win on a night when the Huskies shooting hands were ice cold. Now at 5-0 one of only two undefeated Pac 10 teams (Wazzu is the other), UW moved up in both national basketball polls. Coaches say the Dawgs are the #10 best team in the nation, the media puts them at #12.
UW’s next game is their first on the road–they’ll play at Texas Tech on Thursday as part of the Pac 10/Big XII Challenge.
