SEATTLE — The student section was filled about two hours before tipoff. The empty seats around them at Hec Edmundson Pavilion filled in slowly, including hundreds of bundled-up fans who continued to trickle in as the first half into full swing.
The 9,591 faithful got warm, but they didn’t necessarily get satisfied.
During the best indoor show in a frozen-over city, the University of Washington men’s basketball team rallied but couldn’t get over the hump against the Pacific-12 Conference favorites Thursday night, falling 69-66 to Cal.
UW senior Darnell Gant capped off one of the most forgettable performances of his career by missing an open, potential score-tying 3-pointer with one second to play. Gant, who was coming off a 13-point performance in a win over Washington State, was 0-for-9 from the field and 0-for-6 from 3-point range for the night.
“The whole time, I thought my next shot was going in,” a surprisingly upbeat Gant said afterward. “Like (teammates) say, you have nights like these sometimes.”
The Huskies trailed for all of the final 35 minutes but made it a memorable finish thanks to another second-half breakout from Terrence Ross and a halftime switch from zone to man-to-man defense. Both those elements helped UW rally from a 10-point halftime deficit to get as close as two points, at 68-66, on Ross’s 3-pointer with 10.1 seconds remaininbg.
After Cal’s Justin Cobbs hit one of two free throws for a three-point lead with 8.2 seconds on the clock, the Golden Bears opted not to intentionally foul — even though UW was still in the single bonus and would have had to shoot 1-and-1 from the free-throw line.
The Huskies, meanwhile, decided not to go to Ross, who had 13 of his 15 points in the second half and a pair of 3-pointers in the final 95 seconds. Instead, a play was drawn up for Gant, despite his night-long struggles.
“Last game he had three 3’s, and he is a 40-percent shooter from 3-point range on the year,” coach Lorenzo Romar said in explaining his strategy in the final seconds. “Sometimes if someone’s having an off night, you look at the body of work he has. … He’s shooting at a pretty good percentage, but it just didn’t go down for him.”
Gant, who scored just one point, came up short on an open 3-point attempt from between the wing and the top of the key.
“I knew I was going to be open,” he said. “I took the shot with confidence, but I just came up short.”
The short-handed Huskies (11-7 overall, 4-2 in the Pac-12) tried to save their lungs by playing zone defense for the entire first half, and it was effective only in terms of oxygen. Cal shot 50 percent in the first half, led by Allen Crabbe’s 10 points off a pair of 3-pointers and reserve Robert Thurman’s out-of-nowhere 12 points. The Golden Bears went into halftime with a 35-25 lead.
Along the way, a UW bench that was missing C.J. Wilcox contributed three points on 1-for-8 shooting, despite extended minutes forced on it by two quick fouls to starter Tony Wroten Jr. Backup Hikeem Stewart missed all three of his field-goal attempts, among them an open 3-point shot that air-balled long.
Cal had its own set of depth issues after sixth-man Richard Solomon, a 6-10 sophomore, was ruled ineligible a day before the game. But Thurman was more than capable as a replacement, scoring a 12 of his career-high 16 points in the first half.
UW turned up the heat with some man-to-man defense after halftime, and it seemed to rattle the Bears early on. That, along with some inspired offense from UW’s Ross and Abdul Gaddy, helped the Huskies pull all the way back to within four points, at 55-51, with eight minutes remaining.
But a key over-the-back foul on UW’s Aziz N’Diaye with 6:54 remaining turned the tide back in Cal’s favor. Romar was whistled for a technical for arguing the call, while N’Diaye had to come out of the game with his fourth foul. Cal hit four free throws to open up an eight-point lead, but UW had another run in it.
The Huskies were trailing 66-58 with 1:35 remaining when Ross hit a 3 from the wing. Desmond Simmons added a layup after a Cal turnover — the Bears’ 17th of the night — to cut the lead to three, at 66-63, with 1:00 remaining.
After a pair of Cal free throws, Ross hit another 3 to whittle the Bears’ lead to 68-66 — the closest UW had been since the Bears took a 9-8 lead at 15:19 of the first half.
“Too many mental errors, and we had to fight back,” Ross said afterward. “That’s something we have to get better at if we’re going to have a chance in this league.”
When it was over, Cal (16-4, 6-1) had maintained a lead for the final 35 minutes. The Bears had a knack for hitting rally-stopping shots, while UW seemed to miss open shots every time it was about to pull within a basket in the second half.
Cal’s Thurman single-handedly outscored the UW bench 16-3. The Huskies’ reserves made just one of 12 shots, with Gant struggling the most.
Afterward, he owned up to his rough shooting night.
“That’s what really gets me,” he said of his 0-for-9 shooting performance. “I feel like every next shot is going to make it. I feel confident in every shot.
“Honestly, I feel like I’m going to bounce back, the team is going to bounce back, and we’re going to be ready for Stanford (on Saturday).”
If not, UW could find itself falling out of the Pac-12 just as suddenly as the Huskies played their way into it.
“We can compete with anybody in the league,” Ross said. “We’re going to fight, no matter what. Whether it’s the last-place team, or the first-place team, we can compete with anybody.”
Notable
Wilcox, the Huskies’ second-leading scorer, sat out his second consecutive game because of a stress fracture in his left femur bone. … Desmond Simmons started for the third game in a row, while senior Darnell Gant continues to come off the bench. … After the game, a member of the UW stats crew required medical attention after passing out at the scorers’ table. Medical personnel sat with him for several minutes before deeming that the man was fit to stand under his own power.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
