The Dawgs traveled to Honolulu over the Christmas holiday for the eight-team Diamond Head Classic. While the tournament field was not as laden with blue-bloods as some preseason tourneys, it still offered UW a legitimate test in the final. The Dawgs held serve in the first two rounds against Ball State and Hawaii. You could be forgiven if you don’t think of those as traditional basketballs schools, though both teams have been fairly respectable. UW did enough to win both games fairly comfortably to set up a final match-up with a strong Houston team.
Although only the Dawgs came into the game in the top 25, the betting line for the game was a pick’em, which shows that it was an even match-up.