When the University of Washington women’s basketball team couldn’t hit the shots, the Huskies started hitting the floor.
In more ways than one.
A rededication to defense, whether it means slapping the floor or slamming one’s own face into it, has UW competitive again thi
s season — just when it appeared all was lost.
“Each one of us came in as a pretty good defender, and I think we just found out that we work pretty well as a whole, also,” senior point guard Sarah Morton said. “We’ve grown with each other every year.”
The Huskies (7-8 overall, 2-4 in the Pac-10) have a renewed focus on the defensive end of the floor this season, due in equal parts to desperation and familiarity.
Upon realizing that this year’s team might not have the offensive horses to win games with scoring alone — through the first eight weeks of the season, many of UW’s top scorers were sidelined by injuries — head coach Tia Jackson pushed her team to tighten the ratchet on the defensive end. And the Huskies have responded.
Through six conference games, UW ranks fourth in the conference in scoring defense (allowing 56.9 points per game) and second in field-goal percentage defense (36.7).
“I love it,” Jackson said. “Defense was my thing as a player (at the University of Iowa). When you’re not able to score the bucket every time, it’s nice not to have the other team scoring many. As long as we can keep teams closer to our average (a conference-worst 54.0 points per game), it puts us in contention to win the game.”
A big reason for the defensive success is experience. While the Huskies have only one senior (Morton), they have five players with at least three years of experience in Jackson’s system.
“They get it,” Jackson said. “They’re teaching shifts on the floor before I can even get out there to correct it because they know it. They know what the expectations are.”
Morton is among those who said the Huskies needed time to get used to what Jackson was trying to accomplish on the defensive end.
“We had some people who were more for it in the beginning,” she said, “but now everybody’s bought into it: go after the ball like there’s money on it. We’re all sacrificing, going for those loose balls.”
During an upset win over California on Sunday, players were diving onto the floor for loose balls, taking charges and even lunging into the front row.
“It’s been fun to see them get a little greedier out there,” Jackson said.
Center Mackenzie Argens is among the players who like that part of the game.
“We like on the floor,” Argens said. “Coach J (Jackson) makes that a point every practice, that we want to be the first people on the ground.
“Maybe last year we were a little more timid that way. I think we’re a team that likes to be dirty, in a good way — not cheap shots, but we like to get on the floor.”
The Cal game may have been UW’s best defensive performance of the season, but the Huskies don’t think they’ve peaked.
“I hope we’re still climbing,” Argens said. “We want to be that No. 1 defensive team at the end of the year.”
The defensive emphasis comes, in part, because of an anemic offense that ranks last in the Pac-10 in scoring. Junior Kristi Kingma, at 16.1 points per game, is the only Husky averaging in double figures.
“Because we have such a good defensive-stopping team, we don’t have to rely on our offense,” said Morton, who averages 7.1 points per game while shooting just 35.7 percent from the field. “It really helps us control the tempo. We can have the actual game in our control, and that really helps us because the other team doesn’t go on runs.”
That will be particularly important today, when the Huskies face an Arizona team that ranks third in the conference in points per game, at 75.4.
Jackson said Arizona can “at any moment, run off for 15, 20 points — just like that” and added that the Wildcats (11-5, 2-3) are particularly strong at getting the ball upcourt quickly with long passes.
It’s a unique challenge for UW’s defense, but the Huskies have been able to rise to most challenges — on that end of the floor — for much of this season.
“We’re all working together, and I feel like we have great chemistry on the defensive end,” Argens said. “We’ve just been working really hard to get there.”
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