SEATTLE – Well, it’s a start.
The Washington men’s basketball team still has a long way to go to climb back into the NCAA Tournament race, but at least the hope is still there.
The Huskies, who defeated California on Thursday, turned in their best defensive effort of the season according to head coach Lorenzo Romar and defeated No. 25 Stanford 64-52 Sunday in front of a sold-out crowd at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
The win moves Washington (6-7 Pacific-10, 16-8 overall) within 1 1/2 games of sixth-place Stanford (7-5, 15-8) in the conference standings heading into Wednesday’s showdown against No. 14 Washington State at Hec Ed.
“With a few games left, I think we’ve put ourselves within striking distance,” said Romar, who became the fifth UW men’s basketball coach to win 100 games. “Before, we were just trying to dig ourselves out of a hole. I think we’re almost out of the hole. …We still don’t have much margin for error.”
Starting for the first time since Jan. 13, freshman Spencer Hawes had his most productive game in nearly two months. The 7-foot freshman, going head-to-head with Stanford’s 7-foot freshmen twins Robin and Brook Lopez, had 18 points and seven rebounds, bettering the Lopez’s production (13 points, seven rebounds combined) and redeeming himself for his poor performance in the UW’s one-point loss at Stanford last month. In that game, Hawes, battling a stomach virus, was 3-for-12 for six points.
Hawes said he’s now recovered from that illness and a sprained ankle that has plagued him for a month, and being back in the starting lineup sparked his play.
“(It’s like) two different people, it feels like,” Hawes said of how he felt Sunday compared to his first matchup with Stanford. “I feel refreshed, my energy’s back, my wind’s back. I’m putting on more weight. It’s like night and day.”
Hawes showed just how healthier he was late in the game. After his shot was blocked, he got the ball back, missed the putback, got the rebound and scored to give Washington a 62-43 lead with 2:20 to play. What would have happened had the same thing occurred in the first game?
“I would have missed the first one, dribbled it off my foot out of bounds and then got a technical for being mad about it,” Hawes joked.
Romar said Hawes’ re-emergence in the starting lineup was simply a matter of his prized freshman being healthy again.
“It’s no coincidence that somebody is all of a sudden getting healthy, they’re probably going to play better,” Romar said. “Now he’s stronger, his strength has come back more. Consequently, he had a better performance.”
Just as encouraging to Romar as Hawes’ performance was his team’s defensive effort, which has been a season-long problem. Washington held Stanford to 38 percent shooting, including 25 percent in the second half when the Huskies broke open a two-point game. Lawrence Hill was the only Stanford player in double figures at 15 points, but all but three came in the first half. The Huskies also forced 19 turnovers. It didn’t help Stanford that it played the last eight minutes without starting guard Anthony Goods, who went down with a left ankle injury.
“A lot of their shots were contested shots and a lot of times that’s how we try to measure (our defense),” Romar said. “There’s been too many times this year when we’ve given up far too many uncontested shots. Tonight I thought we did a pretty good job of contesting them.”
“Tonight was a big game showing what can happen when we do it the right way,” added UW forward Jon Brockman, who had his 11th double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
The Huskies broke the game open over a 13 minute, 47 second span of the second half in which they outscored Stanford 24-6. The Huskies forced the action inside and got to the foul line, shooting 20-for-28 on free throws to 9-for-13 by Stanford.
Hawes had eight points in the run and Ryan Appleby scored seven, including a huge 3-pointer that really got the Huskies going. After Stanford pulled to 43-38, Appleby buried his only 3-pointer of the game, knocking it down from the right corner off an inbounds pass to give the UW an eight-point lead.
The lead grew to 49-38 when Adrian Oliver was fouled on a 3-point attempt from the left wing with one second on the shot clock by little-used Stanford backup guard Kenny Brown. Oliver made all three free throws.
The Huskies scored the next five points on three Justin Dentmon free throws and a hook shot by Hawes to take a 54-38 lead that all but put the game away.
Washington won despite shooting 38.2 percent, the second time in the last three games the Huskies failed to break 40 percent. But Washington outrebounded Stanford 39-33.
“We got outworked,” Stanford coach Trent Johnson said. “Every loose ball, every rebound, everything, plain and simple. They played aggressive from start to finish, every aspect of it.”
Now the Huskies have a chance to really spring back into NCAA consideration as they try to make up for a 30-point loss to Washington State earlier this season.
“We put together a very good defensive effort tonight,” Romar said. “We did what we were supposed to do. …It was just good to see our guys go out and compete together as a team at a high level.”
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