If not for television, a W for UW

Those of us who were present with two eyes ranged from the hoi polloi to the highest echelons of state public life: at least one former guv (Booth Gardner) and the University of Washington's omnipresent Mark Emmert, "one of the best [college] presidents in the whole damn country," according to UW regent Bill Gates Sr., borrowing from sports-programming parlance. It didn't matter, however, that the best and worst of us who were two-eyed witnesses Saturday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion thought Justin Dentmon's buzzer lay-up beat the clock. All that mattered was the judgment of a dispassionate cyclops: the television camera recording the event for Fox Sports Northwest. Even after the game refs allowed the scoreboard at the UW basketball court to read UW 76, Pittsburgh 75, the officiating crew members had another gander at the recorded last play. Then they had a few more. By then, the scoreboard had reverted to the 75-74 tally and that's where it remained. Pitt stays unbeaten at 9-0; the Dawgs are pounding along at 4-4 a few weeks before league action. One highlight of a game that actually featured the homies leading for much of the first half was the return of long-shot prodigy Ryan Appleby. The three-point marksman, who missed the first month of the season with a broken thumb, didn't start the game, but he sank his first long ball and five more, finishing with 18 points. Pitt's defense adjusted. It pressured the slight senior during the second half as the Huskies fell behind, improbably gaining a chance to win as time expired. Later, radio play-by-play guy Bob Rondeau lamented the fact that the game had been televised, but not because it presented competition for his KJR-AM (950) broadcast. As he noted, without the TV coverage the refs would have had nothing to review and the 76-75 score would have stood.