SAN DIEGO – Washington pressured the perimeter and caused all sorts of problems for Utah State’s guards. The Huskies shot the ball well from the outside and kept the game at a relatively high pace.
But when it came to Washington’s play in the post in its 75-61 victory over Utah State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday, the Huskies were severely lacking.
Outside of Jamaal Williams, the Huskies got no offense inside, and only Brandon Roy seemed comfortable driving to the basket against Utah State’s zone defense. More of a problem was the fact that Washington did a poor job of defending the post, and an even worse job of rebounding against a team that was no bigger and was far less athletic.
Utah State had 38 points in the paint and outrebounded the Huskies 35-22. However Washington coach Lorenzo Romar says it was more a matter of the style it played against the Aggies than any breakdowns.
“Because we were applying so much pressure out front, it’s going to open something up, something’s got to give,” Romar said. “We felt if we could pressure as best we could, maybe on the inside they might get a little bit, that’s going to happen. They got some back doors but maybe they get four or five back doors, if you compare that to the 22 turnovers, we’ll take that trade off.”
Indeed, Washington was so aggressive on the perimeter, it forced a school NCAA Tournament-record 11 steals and forced 22 turnovers, leading to 24 points. It did leave the Huskies out of position to rebound or defend inside, but that’s something the Huskies were willing to give up. Washington felt it had to focus on stopping Utah State’s outside shooters, who had helped the Aggies rank fourth in the nation in 3-point shooting at 40.5 percent. Against Washington, Utah State was 3-for-13 on threes.
“That’s a team that lives and dies by the threes,” UW senior Mike Jensen said. “They’re the fourth-best 3-point shooting team in the nation. You can’t take everything away. We didn’t want to give up threes all night.”
On offense, Washington got little in the post beyond Jamaal Williams and Brandon Roy. Jon Brockman had no points and just one shot to go with four rebounds, and Jensen, though more of a perimeter player anyway, had seven points and three rebounds.
But Romar said that was more a matter of Roy and Williams being so hot and that the team just kept going to them.
Washington will have to get better rebounding and will have to defend more aggressively on Saturday against a much bigger and more athletic Illinois team. But the players believe that they will adjust the game plan to fit that, just as they did against Utah State.
“Any time you pressure the way we pressure, you’ve got to give something up,” Jensen said. “Sometimes teams are going to make runs on us, sometimes the pressure doesn’t work, but over the course of the game we rely on the fact that they’re going to turn the ball over more and we’re going to get easy baskets out of it.”
“They’re a talented group down low,” Brockman said of Utah State. “They’ve got some good players. But we pressured them and of course we’re going to give a few things up. Overall we did a good job of taking them out of what they wanted to do.”
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