Rough road ahead for UW women’s basketball team

Published 11:34 pm Friday, January 13, 2012

The past seven days have been pretty trying for the University of Washington women’s basketball team, which dropped a heartbreaker to Utah last Saturday, lost sophomore Marjorie Heard to a season-ending knee injury three days later and was still holding out hope heading into today’s game against Washington State that leading scorer Regina Rogers would be available.

The worse news for the Huskies is that things aren’t about to get any easier.

After taking the court today against one of the best WSU teams in recent memory, UW makes a trip to the Bay Area, then returns home to face Arizona and Arizona State, two teams that have a combined 22-7 record. In a sense, the first four games of Pacific-12 Conference play that left the Huskies with a 1-3 record represented the easy part of the season.

“We’ve obviously had some tough losses recently, but we can’t dwell on that,” first-year coach Kevin McGuff said. “We’ve got to show up and get better for each game. It’s a challenge every night. There are no easy games. But that’s what I like about this league. As tough as it can be sometimes, it can be exciting. We get to compete with some of the best teams in the country on a weekly basis.”

While the Cougars (9-7 overall, 3-1 in the Pac-12) might not be mentioned among the nation’s best, they’re a much-improved unit from recent seasons. That’s just fine with McGuff.

“I hope they’re really good,” he said, “and I hope we beat them. That’s a fact of life, and I’m sure they feel the same way. For them to be good, I think that’s good for our league. But I’m certainly competitive, and our players are competitive, and we want to beat good teams. We have to be competitive ourselves to be able to do that.”

While the Cougars are off to one of their best conference starts in program history, the Huskies (9-5, 1-3) are still trying to get back on track after three close losses in four Pac-12 games.

“It’s disappointing because we put ourselves in position to win and didn’t win games,” McGuff said. “That’s part of the evolution we’re in as a team: how to finish these games out.”

As if the Huskies don’t have enough motivation to get a win, they’re also motivated by tonight’s opponent. The Apple Cup gridiron rivalry carries over to all sports.

“They’re always going to be a rival team,” said UW’s Rogers, the daughter of former Husky football player Reggie Rogers. “I grew up in a Husky household, so it’s always going to be a big rival.”

The Huskies weren’t going to know until sometime today whether Rogers will be able to play. She suffered a bruised hamstring last Saturday and sat out most of the week of practices. Rogers, a 6-foot-4 post player, said she hoped to play tonight and extend the Huskies’ 32-game winning streak against WSU.

“We pride ourselves in it,” she said of the streak. “It’s a big game for me. Hopefully, the game-time (injury) decision comes out in my favor.”

The streak seems to be somewhat of a sore subject on both sides of the rivalry.

During her weekly press conference, WSU coach June Daugherty would only talk about the importance of gaining in-state bragging rights. She said her team doesn’t prepare any differently for UW than it does for Cal or Stanford.

UW sophomore Mercedes Wetmore also downplayed the significance of the streak, saying: “This is just another game that we’re going to prepare for, no matter how many wins we have against them. This is a new year, and we’re just trying to get this win.”

McGuff hasn’t been using the 25-year-old streak as a motivational tactic this week.

“I don’t think you can put too much into it because you get your kids thinking about that, and I think you get them thinking about the wrong things,” McGuff said. “Washington State is an excellent team, and we’ll have our hands full with them based on what they do on the court. And that’s really what our kids need to focus on.”

McGuff hopes his Huskies put the past in the past, whether that means turning the page on a positive head-to-head streak or moving on from the frustration that has been the past seven days.

“I think, injuries aside, it’ll be about us going over there and having to play well to win,” he said. “It’ll be a difficult road game, and we’re going to prepare aggressively and hopefully put ourselves in position to be successful.”