SEATTLE – The unwritten rule is that officials swallow their whistles and call only blatantly obvious fouls during the last seconds of a tight game.
Washington’s Brandon Roy learned Saturday night after an 86-84 overtime loss to UCLA that the uncalled infractions might include aggravated assault.
Down 86-84 with two-tenths of a second to play, the Huskies had the ball out of bounds to the right of their own basket. Will Conroy tossed the ball at the rim and Roy launched into the air for a try at tipping it in.
But the Bruins’ T.J. Cummings appeared to undercut him, which would have put Roy at the free throw line with two shots.
Exactly no whistles. Buzzer sounds. Game over.
“I was undercut; I don’t think he made a play on the basketball,” Roy said. “I definitely thought it was a foul.”
The loss, before a Hec Edmundson Pavilion crowd of 7,638, ruined a wild UW comeback from a 72-61 deficit with 2:19 remaining in regulation.
Many left when UCLA established that 11-point bulge, but that’s just when things got interesting.
Washington, like a pack of wild dogs, pressed all over the floor, caused turnovers and before you could say “upset,” took a 75-74 lead on a layup by Nate Robinson with 40 seconds to go.
Trevor Ariza tied it at 75 with one free throw with 38 seconds remaining, and the two teams could not manage the game-winner before regulation time ran out.
In overtime, the two teams traded the lead while the raucous crowd tried to blow the roof off the gym. Conroy, who led all scorers with 29 points, tied the score at 84 with a three-point play with 53.2 seconds remaining.
After the teams exchanged missed shots, Roy tried to steal the ball from Dijon Thompson, only to foul him with 10.5 seconds to play. Cummings made both freebies for an 86-84 Bruins lead.
Conroy drove the lane, but missed a 2-footer under heavy pressure. After a scramble, the ball was wrestled after for a held ball, and the Huskies had their last chance with Roy.
“You have to give the guy room to come down,” Conroy said. “They have to call that.”
Washington’s comeback was a result of gutty hustle that created numerous turnovers by the Bruins down the stretch.
“I’m proud of our guys and the way they competed tonight,” said UW coach Lorenzo Romar, whose team fell to 5-7 and 0-4 in the Pacific-10 Conference. “Our guys did not quit. We fought real hard and scrapped.”
Nate Robinson added 18 points for Washington, while Roy finished with 16. Cummings led the Bruins (8-3, 4-0) with 22.
UCLA came out cold in the second half, but Washington couldn’t take advantage. The Bruins missed their first five shots, but the Huskies responded with just 1-for-5 from the floor. Many of those UW shots were open looks, such as Mike Jensen’s wide-open baseline jumper that clanged off.
Later, the Bruins extended their lead to 52-35 with a 12-4 run, capped by a gorgeous alley-oop layup from Cedric Bozeman to Ariza.
The hot-shooting Bruins took a 38-27 lead into the locker room at halftime on the strength of a four-minute, 11-0 run midway through the half.
Cummings scored seven in the streak, including a 3-pointer that got UCLA jump-started.
In that time, Washington missed six straight shots, committed a pair of turnovers. They also suffered some major bad luck when Bobby Jones and Curtis Allen stole the ball from Cedric Bozeman, only to collide at midcourt, fall and watch the ball toward their basket and trickle out of bounds.
Washington appeared a step slow on defense, which contributed to the Bruins’ 56.7-percent shooting percentage from the floor (17-for-30). Too often, the Huskies guards allowed their Bruin counterparts to penetrate and kick the ball out to a teammate for an easy jumper.
Cummmings, who had 12 first-half points, got many that way. He also nailed two 3-pointers without a Husky within an area code to put a hand in his face.
It was the same with Michael Fey, the Bruins’ 7-foot center from Olympia, who had eight points in the first half on 4-for-4 shooting.
Meanwhile, the Huskies had trouble hitting anything.
Washington hurt itself with faulty shot selection, but the long, lean, athletic UCLA had something to do with that. Anthony Washington, at 6-9, saw two shots blocked, one by Ariza, a 6-7 freshman jumping jack. Robinson, who has fought shooting demons all season, was just 2-for-8 from the floor. He, Jones and Conroy had a team-high six points.
The Huskies were further hurt by Jensen’s defensive decision. Jensen picked up two silly fouls in five minutes and played just five first-half minutes.
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