SEATTLE — This has been a week of firsts for the Huskies.
And not in a good way.
Two days after suffering its first double-digit loss at home since December of 2003, Washington lost back-to-back home games for the first time since January of 2004, falling 79-75 to California at Hec Edmundson Pavilion Saturday afternoon.
On Thursday, Stanford’s Brook Lopez became the first person to score more than 30 points against the Huskies this year, finishing with 31. On Saturday, Cal’s Ryan Anderson did his Bay Area rival two better, finishing with 33 points and 17 rebounds. The sophomore forward’s point total was the most allowed by the Huskies since Adam Morrison scored 43 in December of 2005.
“Well, obviously a disappointing weekend for us,” Lorenzo Romar said. “It’s not how you envision the weekend going come last Wednesday. Unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
Unlike Thursday’s lopsided loss, the Huskies were in this game until the final seconds. Washington had the lead for most of the first half, but Cal took control with a 14-4 run in the second half that included 10 points from Anderson. Cal led by as many as nine points on two occasions, but the Huskies battled back in the final minutes to tie the score at 72 with 1 minute, 20 seconds remaining on a pair of Venoy Overton free throws.
The Huskies appeared to have made a crucial stop on Cal’s next possession when Anderson missed an off-balanced 3-pointer, but the Huskies were unable to secure the rebound, giving the Bears a second chance. After a timeout, Patrick Christopher, who finished with 20 points, made a 3-pointer with 27 seconds remaining to put Cal back in the lead.
Ryan Appleby, who recovered from a slow start to finish with 19 points, missed a long three on Washington’s next possession, and Cal made its next four free throws to preserve the lead despite a Justin Dentmon three with 14 second to play.
“This is a really hard defeat because we though we were going to bounce back and get the win,” said Dentmon. “But it didn’t work to our favor.”
Jon Brockman, who got into foul trouble early, played just 24 minutes, finishing with 15 points and a season-low four rebounds. Brockman’s absence was lessened by a surprisingly productive game by Artem Wallace. The junior forward came into the contest averaging 2.3 points, 1.8 rebounds and 11.3 minutes per game, but had career highs of 17 points, 10 rebounds and 33 minutes.
His 1-for-5 performance at the free-throw line, however, was a reminder of what could have been for the Huskies had they shot better after being fouled. The Huskies, who rank last in the Pac-10 by a large margin in free-throw shooting, were even worse than their 59.6 percentage average. Against Cal, they made just eight of 18 attempts.
Romar said that, other than Wallace and freshman Matthew Bryan-Amaning, everyone on the team is shooting free throws well in practice, but that it isn’t translating to the games.
“It becomes a mental thing,” he said. “You’ve got to be mentally tough to make them.”
At 3-6 halfway through Pac-10 play, the Huskies know they need to turn things around quickly to keep their postseason hopes alive. After losing a third straight game, Washington can at least take comfort knowing that fortunes have changed quickly in the Pac-10 this year. Cal came to Washington having lost three straight games, all at home, then proceeded to sweep Washington State and the Huskies. Arizona State was the darling of the Pac-10 early on, but has lost five in a row since starting 4-0 in conference play.
“That’s the crazy thing about the Pac-10,” Brockman said. “That Cal team, their season was over on Thursday before their game. Now all of a sudden it’s like, shoot, they swept the Washington’s at their place, now they’re back in it. … It’s going to be like that. There’s going to be a hot team next week, it’s going to be a different team, so we’ve got to do what we can to make sure that we are that hot team.”
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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