Oregon State women beat Huskies to snap 10-game losing streak

Published 4:30 pm Saturday, February 5, 2011

SEATTLE — Perhaps this is what qualifies as progress during the frustrating era that has recently plagued the University of Washington women’s basketball.

After the improving Huskies thudded back to earth with a 51-46 loss to Oregon State on Saturday afternoon, the visiting Beaver

s were celebrating and giggling like they’d just knocked off a national power.

That’s because Oregon State and new coach Scott Rueck had just made history — thanks in large part to the Huskies, who were historically bad.

Two days after rallying to beat Oregon in one of the most exciting performances of the season — and perhaps of Tia Jackson’s four-year career as head coach of the Huskies — UW fell flat on its face by becoming Oregon State’s first Pac-10 victim this season. The Beavers (8-14 overall, 1-10 in the Pac-10) ended a 10-game losing streak and gave Rueck his first conference victory after taking a lead 4 1/2 minutes into Saturday’s game and staying in front the rest of the way.

“I didn’t know if it would come this year,” said Rueck, the former coach at Division III George Fox University who inherited a team that had just two returning players after several defections under the former regime. “Shoot, I didn’t know if any wins would come this year. … It gives us hope.”

The Beavers used a zone defense and the timely 3-point shooting of Sage Indendi, a George Fox transfer who scored 17 points and hit five 3’s Saturday, to knock off the Huskies (9-11, 4-7).

The result may not have looked as shocking one month ago, when UW had to rally from a 13-point deficit to beat the Beavers in Corvallis, but it seemed unthinkable after UW’s recent run of success that included wins over Cal, Washington State and Oregon in a span of five games.

The overtime win over the Ducks on Thursday night seemed to bring out the best in the Huskies, but they appeared worn out and uninspired heading into a game about 41 hours later.

“We looked tired; we looked defeated from an early point in the game,” said UW junior Kristi Kingma, who had just eight points on 3-of-11 shooting Saturday. “We didn’t look like we had the same fight that we always have. And that’s something that you just can’t let happen.”

Facing a 3-2 zone defense that seemed to keep an extra eye on Kingma, the Huskies couldn’t find many options outside of Regina Rogers (17 points and 12 rebounds). Onlookers had to wonder whether UW had ever seen a zone defense before.

“The crazy thing is that zone just put us to sleep, it looked like, out there,” UW’s Jackson said. “We started to play away from our attack-mindset type of game.”

Kingma looked particularly flustered and unable to get into any kind of a rhythm. Even her few open looks resulted in misses, including a wide-open 3-point attempt that sailed over the rim for an airball with 9:54 remaining in the game and the Huskies trailing 39-29.

That was the kind of shot that could have swung the momentum of the game, and yet the Huskies couldn’t hit any of those on this afternoon.

“We were on such a high after the Oregon game,” Kingma said, admitting that three games in the span of seven days had taken its toll. “I could feel, the later part of the Oregon State game, my legs just didn’t have the right lift in them. We all ice-bathed multiple times (during the week), but playing that hard gets to you — especially at this point in the season.”

Kingma and senior Sarah Morton took the blame for the loss afterward, but they were by no means the only Huskies to perform off their game. UW made just 16 of 45 shots, including 6 of 21 during a first half that saw them fall behind 28-19.

At one point midway through the first half, the Huskies had more turnovers (six) and shots blocked (five) than they did field goals (three, on 16 attempts).

UW came out of the gates without much speed, and the Huskies never seemed to get their feet under them.

“I felt like we weren’t into it,” said Rogers, who was the only UW player in double figures Saturday. “I felt like we weren’t as prepared as we were for Oregon (two days earlier). I don’t know what happened, whether pre-game wasn’t right or what happened. I just didn’t feel like we were Huskies today.”

The loss was another step back for a program that finally seemed like it was making some progress. Jackson, who is in the final year of a four-year contract, looked like she might finish over .500 for the first time and finally get UW into the top half of the Pac-10.

But Saturday’s loss put the season in a whole new perspective, even if the eternal optimist wasn’t looking at it that way.

“As much as this game is disappointing, it’s definitely not a defining factor for all the growth and success that we’ve had up to this point,” Jackson said. “We’re going to accept the loss, because we don’t have a choice, but we are moving forward. I want to make sure everybody understands that.”

While Jackson and the UW players were gracious in defeat — they credited OSU, and particularly the Beavers’ zone defense, for the result — they were obviously bothered by the outcome.

“For me, a loss is a loss,” Morton said. “This one hurts pretty bad, but if we lost to any other team it would hurt just as bad.”

OSU’s players, meanwhile, celebrated and lingered on the southeast corner of the court long after the game while receiving congratulations from a couple dozen fans dressed in orange and black.
Rueck, who stands about 5-foot-6, said after the game that he felt about eight feet tall.

He also said that he was most proud of “the courage that it took just for the players to even want to be a part of the program, for the freshmen that signed and said: ‘I want to be a part of this.’ In July, it was an absolute mess.”

After Saturday’s performance, the Huskies are beginning to look like a bit of a mess as well. The work of art that had finally started to come into focus had been hit with a spilled can of paint on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s just unfortunate,” Jackson said. “It’s really unfortunate.”