Overton cutting down turnovers, racking up assists

Venoy Overton was sweating before practice even started yesterday, speaking to reporters in the middle of the Hec Edmundson Pavilion floor after completing his prepractice workout. Nobody's been sweating when he's had the ball in his hands since Pac-10 play has started, though. Mark that down as yet another surprise in this topsy-turvy conference season. Overton, often hampered by his out-of-control style of play, is the conference's new assist-to-turnover ratio leader at 2.46 in Pac-10 games, averaging 3.6 assists to 1.4 turnovers through the midway point of the conference season. "Coach Romar told me to take care of the ball," Overton said. "That was a problem I had earlier this year, so I've just been trying to take care of the ball, and once I know I can take care of the ball, find players on the team that will knock down shots." All this culminated Saturday with one of the best games of his career, in terms of distribution, as he dished out seven assists without turning the ball over in a 92-64 win over Washington State. And it's had an impact on his scoring output, too. Overton scored a career-high 20 points in the Huskies' 123-76 win over Seattle U last Tuesday, one game after leading UW with 18 in a loss to USC. "I just think he's focusing on just playing basketball," UW head coach Lorenzo Romar said. "I don't think he's looking maybe to score points as much. It's ironic that I don't think he's looking to score as much, but yet he's scoring more. Its funny how that works." Overton's known for being more of a defense guy, and he leads the team in steals with 35 this year. But he's also taken a more active role in the offense, practically carrying them in the first half against USC and penetrating more in transition in recent games. He also made what almost was the game-winning shot against UCLA two weeks ago, but Mustafa Abdul-Hamid responded with a buzzer-beater to give the Bruins the win. Otherwise, Overton might have been the talk of Montlake even earlier. He's seemed more comfortable with his role as the sixth man, after beginning the year as the team's starting point guard. Abdul Gaddy is the starter now, though Romar often refers to Overton as a sixth starter, and Overton averages more minutes per game than Gaddy. "[Overton has] been playing good for a while," Romar said. "He's had a couple lapses. The SC game was certainly, offensively, a game where he turned the corner in terms of scoring 18, but when we made the lineup change, he started scoring double figures, and that was before that trip." MUST BE THE SHOES Justin Holiday isn't much for talk of title aspirations or individual goals. It says so on his shoes. The 6-foot-6 junior has a simple message written on his Nikes: "Don't talk about it," on the right shoe, "Be about it," on the left. "I have different things on different shoes," Holiday said. "A lot of times, people talk about how we want to do this, or we want to do this or do that, or as an individual you can talk about wanting to do something. You can't just talk about it. You've got to do it." He's been doing it. Holiday grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds in Saturday's win over WSU, shutting down Pac-10 leading-scorer Klay Thompson at the same time. And he set a career high in scoring last week with 16 points against Seattle U. THOMAS' TWITTER Isaiah Thomas knows a little something about how to create a stir with one Twitter update. He did again yesterday, Tweeting "I wanna play football nxt year word aapp." He was kidding. Sort of. "I want to, but I probably won't," he said. "I love football, but who knows." Nate Robinson is the most recent UW basketball player to also play football, and he was one of the Huskies' better defensive backs for the 2002 team that finished 7-6. But Thomas is no Robinson. "I wanted to play football, too," Romar said. "I did up until eighth grade. Nate is an NBA player, and probably could have been an NFL player, so we don't ever discourage playing two sports. But I don't know. I've never seen Isaiah play football. "That Twitter stuff, you just get to put anything on there, and it works: You're asking me if he's going to play football." Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.

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