From Isaiah Thomas to Jon Brockman to Brandon Roy to Detlef Schrempf to Lorenzo Romar, every University of Washington star player of the modern era has had memorable moments but unceremonious finishes during their Husky careers.
This year’s Huskies have the rare opportunity to close out in style.
“Every time at the end of the postseason, we always end with a loss,” said senior Darnell Gant, whose previous three seasons as a non-redshirt have ended with NCAA tournament losses. “This time, we’ve got an opportunity to get a win. Hopefully, I can (finish at UW with a win).”
Through a season filled with ups, downs and just about everything in between, the Huskies can erase some of their heartache by winning the National Invitational Tournament this week in New York City. UW (24-10) plays Minnesota in a semifinal tonight, with the winner advancing to Thursday’s championship game at Madison Square Garden.
Romar, UW’s former player and current coach, said before the Huskies left town that winning the NIT might become a more memorable landmark of the 2011-12 season than being the first team from the Pacific-10/Pacific-12 Conference to miss out on the NCAA tournament.
“If we’re able to do well in New York,” Romar said before the team got on a bus bound for SeaTac Airport on Saturday, “it might be looked at as: not only did you win a Pac-12 championship, but you also won another championship.”
To do that, the Huskies must first get by a team that could be considered, by March Madness standards, a tournament Cinderella. Minnesota (22-14) finished ninth in the 12-team Big Ten Conference, was a No. 6 seed for the NIT (only eight of the 32 teams in the bracket were seeded lower) and went 1-7 in the month of February.
One might say that the Gophers achieved a minor miracle just by making it to the end of the regular season with four healthy players.
Two of Minnesota’s recent top recruits were playing in the Pac-12 as transfers this season (Devoe Joseph at Oregon and Justin Cobbs at California) while two others (Iowa State leading scorer Royce White and Colorado State’s Colton Iverson, who sat out the season under NCAA transfer rules) were at the NCAA tournament. Top player Trevor Mbakwe, projected as a likely first-round NBA draft pick, blew out his knee seven games into this season and was lost for the year. Big man Ralph Sampson III hurt his knee late in the season and has missed most of the NIT (his status for tonight’s game is questionable).
But with the postseason emergence of high-flying Rodney Williams, and the unflappable play of freshman point guard Andre Hollins, the Gophers have scratched their way into the NIT semifinals.
While both teams are undoubtedly happy to be in New York City, the Huskies feel like they have a bit more to prove. Junior point guard Abdul Gaddy has said several times that UW feels like it is still trying to show that a so-called snub on Selection Sunday was unwarranted, and several teammates said the Huskies feel like they’re carrying the banner for the much-maligned Pac-12.
But what’s really motivating UW right about now is the possibility of playing one more game. And then, maybe the Huskies can finally finish off a postseason with a celebration.
“It would be real special, considering the year that we had,” said sophomore C.J. Wilcox, whose program has finished each of the past 11 seasons with a loss, dating back to a 2000-01 team that beat UCLA in the season finale to snap an eight-game losing streak. “We get a chance to play extra (games) and end our season with a win.”
It might not be an NCAA title, but as finishes go, it might be the next best thing.
“We still feel like we’re playing for a national championship,” Huskies star Terrence Ross said, “so it’s still a big deal to us.”
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