TUCSON, Ariz. — For 20 minutes, the Washington Huskies implied that Thursday night’s game at the McKale Center might be another classic, a tit-for-tat reminder of how these affairs against the Arizona Wildcats used to go.
Then the second half started, and it was a reminder, indeed. A reminder that the gap between 18th-ranked Arizona and these Huskies, resilient as they were in three victories to begin the Pac-12 schedule, might still be about as expansive as the desert that borders either side of Interstate-10.
The Huskies were glad to traverse that path back to Tempe, where they will reboot and hope for a split of this road trip on Saturday at Arizona State.
They didn’t seem to know what hit them in the second half of this 99-67 trouncing, which Arizona achieved by outscoring the Huskies 55-26 after halftime with an unrelenting torrent of dunks, 3-pointers and more dunks.
Do the math: the Huskies trailed just 44-41 after the first half.
Then …
Arizona scored the first seven points of the second half.
Arizona scored 14 of the first 20 points of the second half.
Arizona scored 26 of the first 33 points of the second half, and the game was over.
Well, not actually over. They let the teams keep playing until the final buzzer. And at no point before that did the Wildcats stop attacking the rim, stop dunking, stop drawing fouls, stop scoring and scoring and scoring against a helpless UW defense.
In the end, UW coach Lorenzo Romar identified a single bright spot: “That it ended.”
“They just did whatever they wanted in the second half,” Romar said.
“We didn’t think we were going to come out flat like that,” said UW forward Marquese Chriss, who scored 11 of his 13 points in the first half.
“They just had way more energy than us,” said senior guard Andrew Andrews, the Pac-12’s leading scorer who managed only nine points, his first single-digit output in the last 27 games. “I felt like we came out, we were trying to play hard, do the right things, try to get stops, but they just made so many plays.”
And the Wildcats made 70.4 percent of their second-half field-goal attempts — 19-of-27, and 7-of-9 from 3-point range — and made 60.3 percent for the game.
Ryan Anderson led with 21 points and nine rebounds. Kaleb Tarczewski raged inside for 16 points and 13 rebounds, and might have had the play of the game when he drew Chriss’ fifth foul on a two-handed dunk atop the freshman’s head. Mark Tollefsen, starting in place of injured guard Allonzo Trier — who, by the way, is Arizona’s leading scorer — had 11 points, including a pair of 3-pointers on consecutive possessions in the second half that gave Arizona a 64-47 lead, its largest of the game at the time.
Even in the first half, Arizona attacked UW’s interior, and forced Chriss, Noah Dickerson and Malik Dime into foul trouble. Still, the Huskies trailed by only three points at halftime, and figured they would continue competing thereafter.
Then, they didn’t. Washington made only 30.3 percent of its second-half field-goal attempts after making 51.5 percent in the first half, and Romar thought that might have contributed to the Huskies’ defensive slippage.
Arizona (14-3, 2-2 in Pac-12) finished with nine dunks, 12 layups, 50 points in the paint, and outrebounded the Huskies 43-26.
“As we came down, possession after possession, ball not going in the basket, you could see us slowly, defensively, start to break down,” Romar said. “But they had a lot to do with that too. They created some really good mismatches against us, and with us in foul trouble, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do.”
It didn’t help that Andrews appeared to sprain his ankle late in the first half and was hobbled a bit in the second, though he finished the game. Romar said he thinks the senior guard will be OK for Saturday’s game at ASU, and Andrews, limping some as he walked toward his postgame interview, said the same.
There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere. But the Huskies (11-5, 3-1) swear they won’t let this stinker seep into their next task.
“We don’t have that type of team,” Andrews said. “Our team is built around high-character guys, high-will guys. We just dropped a big one and we got embarrassed, so we’ve got to come out with some passion and fire at Arizona State.”
For 40 minutes, this time.
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