PORTLAND, Ore. — White jerseys and shorts were scattered around the floor of Washington’s locker room in the Rose Garden, awaiting their final washing of the season.
Several players sat, eyes red, heads hung low, while others remained in the shower, seemingly hoping to wash away the sting of a season-ending loss.
In the same city where the Huskies started their season with a surprising loss, they finished it with a 76-74 loss to Purdue in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday.
In between those two losses, Washington surpassed everyone’s expectations by winning a Pacific-10 title and earning a No. 4 seed in the tournament. But on this day, the Huskies didn’t have enough to overcome a slow start and a stingy Boilermakers defense.
“We played hard, we played really hard, but they came out with just a little more fire,” said junior forward Quincy Pondexter, who finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds, giving him 43 points and 17 rebounds in two tournament games. “That was the edge that they had. It wasn’t that we didn’t play hard, they just played a little tiny bit harder. And it sucks because we busted our butts all year.”
Purdue jumped ahead of the Huskies early and led by as many as 14 in the first half, but despite an 11-point halftime deficit, the second largest of the season for Washington, the Huskies were able to make a game of it.
With 9:33 left in the game, Elston Turner hit a 3-pointer to cap a 7-0 Washington run that that cut the deficit to 4. It was the closest the game had been since Purdue led 22-18 with 7:30 minutes left in the first half. Purdue’s lead never grew larger than eight points from there, and Washington cut the lead down to two points with a Jon Brockman putback with 3:08 remaining.
Brockman, who ended his Washington career with 20 points and 18 rebounds for his 60th career double-double, scored seven straight points in the final minutes to keep the Huskies close, but Washington could never tie the score.
Sophomore center JaJuan Johnson, who led the Boilermakers with 22 points, helped preserve the lead by blocking consecutive shots by Isaiah Thomas and Pondexter with one minute remaining.
Thomas, who led the Huskies with 24 points, had another chance to tie the score with 18.8 seconds left, but missed a layup while driving into three Purdue defenders.
“Those two drives it was open,” Thomas said. “They’re shots I usually make. I thought I got fouled but they didn’t call it. And the second one it was too hard. They’re shots that usually go down and usually are successful.”
Purdue sophomore guard E’Twaun Moore made three of four free throws from that point to seal the win, and Pondexter’s putback of a Justin Dentmon miss at the buzzer could only make the losing margin look a little closer.
“We just couldn’t get over that hump,” said Brockman, who finishes his career as Washington’s all-time leading rebounder and second-leading scorer. “I was fully confident, I really believed in our guys and thought we were going to get back into it, thought we were going to take the lead. We were in control of the game, but they made some big plays and some big free throws. They played a great ball game.”
While the Boilermakers clinched a win in the final seconds, they did a lot to earn a Sweet 16 berth with their first-half play. Purdue frustrated the Huskies with stingy defense — Washington shot just 35.5 percent while being held to 28 points — and perhaps more importantly, the Boilermakers beat the Huskies at their own game by out-rebounding Washington 20-15, leading to 11 second-chance points in the half to just four for Washington.
“We allowed them too many second-chance points,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said of the first half. “We made a few defensive errors. And what happens to us once in a while happened to us again tonight: We were content with just moving the ball one or two times and then trying to manufacture a shot. In the second half, we moved the ball more, our defense picked up. That’s how we were able to come back.”
It was the second time in eight days that Washington fell behind early and had a second-half comeback attempt come up short. In the semifinals of the Pac-10 tournament, Arizona State built a 17-point lead on the Huskies, then survived a Washington comeback in the second half.
“They’re just a together group, and in the end when you count the entire game, they made smarter plays and were the smarter basketball team,” Brockman said. “We played very smart in the second half. We brought the energy, I thought we did a lot of things right in the second half, but it was just too much.”
And despite the disappointment in Washington’s locker room on Saturday, Romar will still look back on the 2008-09 season and think of it as a success.
“Absolutely,” Romar said. “We gave it everything we had and that made it successful as far as I’m concerned. The win-loss record, winning the conference was great. But when a team gives everything is has to be a team, as far as I’m concerned it’s successful. And that’s what that team did.”
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com/huskiesblog
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
