Glimpses of hope in a blowout
There’s been very little for the University of Washington fans to celebrate outside of the comfort of Bank of America arena. After last 
nights 93-81 beating by the Cal Bears — the huskies have now equaled the win total of the 2008 Detroit Lions on the road.
Zero. Zilch. Nada. And minus the heart-breaking losses to UCLA and Texas Tech — the majority of the losses have been poorly defended, turnover infested blow-outs with appalling shot selection where the team has not only been outplayed, they’ve also been — sorry Romar defenders — outcoached.
If you had just read the box-score, or only watched the first half of the game, there wouldn’t be too much reason for optimism. The Huskies shot below 45 percent from the field, had only seven assists, and were out-rebounded by nine — not exactly the definition of how to win on the road.
If you take a look at the bigger picture (and in a year where you have zero road wins, you kind of have to) — you will see there were a lot of things the Huskies can take into the final third of the season.
First, lets keep in mind that Cal is not only arguably the best team in the conference, but a bad match-up for the Huskies. Jerome Randle is nearly an impossible matchup for both Venoy Overton and Isaiah Thomas — they just aren’t big or long enough to close out on his quick release, and when forced to play close he’s quick enough to blow by, as we saw on numerous occasions last night. Jamaal Boykin is another tough matchup, too big for Quincy Pondexter and Justin Holiday, too quick for Tyrese Breshers or Matthew Bryan-Amaning. Yes, they were able to have their way with the Bears at home, but it took one of the best shooting days of the year to complete the effort. The Dawgs should hope that someone pulls an early upset and Cal can be avoided in the Pac-10 tournament.
Despite the poor match-up, the Huskies were also still able to finally put together a decent offensive effort on the road. The 81 points could have easily been 90 to 95 if a few balls bounce in the right direction. Shooting 26 for 30 from the free throw line will usually help you win a lot of games, it just didn’t today. There are still major concerns about the ball movement when Abdul Gaddy isn’t on the floor, but it was still one of the better offensive performances of the year.
The biggest reason to have optimism though, is that the Huskies didn’t give up. When the Dawgs were down by 17 with around four minutes left in the first half — it would have been easy for the team to pack it in and hope that Stanford gets the team of the snide. There was no sign of that, however. The Huskies competed for loose balls throughout the game, made a few adjustments to try and create some pressure, and at no point gave the “oh well” body language. Lets not forget about the gigantic amount of minutes being played by sophomores and juniors — with quite a few of the players not being regular members of the rotation last year. It would be easy for these kids to say ‘wait til next year’ — but last night that wasn’t there, and that’s something to admire.
The last six games are all winnable — in fact winnable may be an understatement. The chances of an at-large bid may have already slipped away — but there were things to take from last nights game that bode well not only for next year, but for mid-March as well.