Washington’s gloomy season would have gone much better if the Huskies played in the Pac-2 with Arizona State instead of the Pac-12. The Huskies downed the Sun Devils 69-58 in Tempe Saturday in the team’s first complete-game effort since beating Arizona State in Seattle three weeks ago.
Washington (15-13, 7-8) won for just the third time in 11 games. Arizona State (20-8, 9-6) may have played its way out of the NCAA tournament with what could be deemed as a “bad” loss at home to the Huskies. The Huskies get a week off before closing out the regular season with home games against Washington State, USC and UCLA. A sweep of the final three will improve UW’s seeding in the Pac-12 tourney in Las Vegas.
Three nights after Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar said his team played with a “lack of pride” in a blowout loss to Arizona, the Huskies gave little for their coach to lament.
The Huskies limited the conference’s third-leading scorer, Jahii Carson (17.8 points per game) to 10 points on three of 14 shooting. And averaging a sloppy 13.4 turnovers a contest, Washington turned the ball over just seven times and shot 48 percent from the floor.
After a turnover-riddled senior campaign, Abdul Gaddy (7 assists, no turnovers) ran a crisp offensive attack, hitting open shooters while keeping the ball in Washington’s possession for a change. Gaddy finished with 13 points on six of nine shooting and helped button up Carson.
Reminiscent of Washington’s win over Arizona State in Seattle, C.J. Wilcox was a non-factor. Wilcox (eight points) missed 10 of 12 shots from the field, including all five shot attempts from deep. The junior was held scoreless in the first half.
Washington didn’t need him.
Scott Suggs (16 points) paced the Huskies offensively, hitting four of six shots from behind the arc, including a dagger with 25 seconds left to put his team up six.
Washington saw its 13-point second-half lead dwindle to one with 3:30 remaining. But the Huskies fought off the Arizona State surge, hitting all six free throw attempts in the waning minutes. Suggs’ 3-ball sealed Washington’s 20th win in the last 23 games against ASU.
Andrew Andrews (11 points) was the only other Husky to finish in double figures.
4 Comments
Good game overall and against a team already with twenty wins but Wilcox again is hurting the team. Simmons should be starting over him and maybe give Blackwell some more playing time. Surprised how Romar has really tightened up the rotation this season.
Meanwhile in Spokane…. the second-ranked team in the country won by 30. Did anybody in Seattle hear about it? Nope. The Times buried it and this website didn’t even mention a word.
I thought this was Sports Press NORTHWEST???
Meanwhile in Spokane…. the second-ranked team in the country won by 30 (2 days after winning by 40). Did anybody in Seattle hear about it? Nope. The Times buried it and this site didn’t even mention a word.
I thought this was Sports Press NORTHWEST???
Huskies (Woodward) would do well to give few a blank check to get the program to consistent Sweet 16 status. Romar never will. he’s done all he can and it’s time to move on and up.
Only trouble is Few has stated he doesn’t want to leave Gonzaga a number of times.