By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
It wasn’t an accident that the University of Washington women’s basketball team blew favored and seventh-ranked Oklahoma off the floor in the home stretch of last season’s NCAA West Region semifinal.
Yes, the Sooners took a 60-57 lead with a little more than seven minutes remaining, but the Huskies went on to outscore them 27-7 the rest of the way to take an 84-67 victory.
A glance at the box score is all you need to know how it happened. The Huskies came on at the end because they had eight players log 13 minutes or more in the game. None of the Sooners’ starting five played fewer than 27.
The Sooners were tuckered out. Washington’s depth won it. And during March Madness, depth becomes as much of a weapon as a 6-7 center who can slam with both hands.
“Their starters were there, but they couldn’t maintain,” UW coach June Daugherty said. “The goal of the program is to have a lot of quality individuals who can play a lot of minutes. Kids understand that they may not start, but they’re going to come in and produce. We’re starting to get there as a team.”
When the Huskies (4-1 in Pacific-10 Conference play, 9-5 overall) take to the court tonight at Arizona State (3-2, 12-4) and at Arizona on Saturday night, they’ll do so with the same makeup as the UW team that reached the Elite Eight last year.
Despite having lost six seniors from last season’s 22-10 squad, the Huskies have 10 players who average 10 or more minutes a game. Three – guard Kayla Burt, center Sarah Keeler and starting guard Kristen O’Neill – didn’t play a single minute in a Husky uniform last year.
USC coach Chris Gobrecht pointed to the Huskies’ depth as a huge factor in an 80-79 overtime loss to Washington on Sunday. Washington kept throwing fresh body after fresh body at the Women of Troy, who gradually wore down after leading by as many as seven points in the second half.
“We were having a hard time keeping the energy level up to defend,” she said.
And remember, virtually every Division I player has to make the adjustment from starting every game in high school to coming off the bench. It requires a completely different mindset to enter a game after having to sit on the bench for as much as 30 minutes after pregame warmups conclude.
“I’ll have fresh legs, but I’ll cool off a little on the bench,” Keeler said. “The game will go up and down and up and down and you’re like, ‘Whoa!’ But once you get your second wind, you get that over with in your mind.”
Reserves know that they can make an immediate impact on the defensive end of the floor, mainly because the intricacies and timing of the offense require a few minutes of acclimation time. The earliest contributions may be a steal or a rebound or some other defensive stop.
“You don’t want to come in, make a turnover and have them turn it into points,” Keeler said.
Said Burt: “There’s really no room to get acclimated. You’ve got to be ready right away as far as your intensity on the defensive end and the offensive end. It may take a couple times up the floor to feel that intensity, but most times, your teammates expect you to be fired up coming off the bench.”
In a very real way, the carrot of coming into the Washington women’s program is likely playing time. Daugherty makes no promises to a recruit that she’ll start, whether in her freshman or senior year.
But it doesn’t take much to research the fact that few players languish on the bench.
“We talk to kids a lot about the fact that this is team basketball,” Daugherty said. “You may play 40 (minutes); you may play four. But whatever you do, you always have to look at the team first. It’s not easy. And it’s not easy when you have parents. Or your boyfriend. Everybody thinks you should play 40 minutes.
“Our kids understand that they have to respect and trust their coaches. They understand that they and we as coaches have to put the team first. It doesn’t always mean you agree, but you have to handle it.”
By buying into that, the Huskies can be difficult to handle.
Especially in March.
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