SEATTLE — Seconds before the final horn sounded, a towel went flying in the air from the Washington bench.
Next it was Quincy Pondexter getting airborne, leaping onto the scorers table to celebrate in front of the Dawg Pack.
After thee straight losses at home, after hearing criticisms that they weren’t tough, weren’t the hard-nosed, scrappy Huskies of recent years, the Huskies said enough is enough on Sunday afternoon, upsetting fifth-ranked UCLA 71-61 in front of a frenzied sellout crowd at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
“The guys just came together and said, ‘All right, that’s enough,’” said junior forward Jon Brockman, who collected his Pac-10 leading 16th double-double of the season with 12 points and 17 rebounds. “We have way more pride than to do what we’ve been doing throughout the season so far. I think we showed a lot of maturity to come out and not let the games behind us keep us low.”
Justin Dentmon, who has spent most of the season coming off the bench behind freshman Venoy Overton, epitomized that pride, scoring a game-high 20 points while holding UCLA point guard Darren Collison to a season-low three points.
Dentmon had to wait only 57 seconds to get into the game, as Lorenzo Romar gave Overton a quick hook for showing a lack of effort getting back on defense.
The junior point guard took advantage of the opportunity, scoring five of Washington’s first nine points to keep the Huskies close. A strong defensive effort — UCLA shot just 34.4 percent and committed 16 turnovers, including 11 in the first 20 minutes — allowed Washington to take the lead midway through the first half. A pair of Dentmon free throws with 10 minutes left in the half gave Washington the lead for good.
“The last couple of days have been hard for us trying to figure out what we’ve been doing wrong and why we were losing at home,” said Dentmon.
Dentmon called the game his best of the season, and most of his points came from attacking the basket to get layups or free throws.
“I feel like I’ve been letting my teammates down by not being aggressive,” he said. “I don’t know, I’ve just been out of it, and I just tried to show them that I can pick it up.”
But for all of Dentmon’s points and Brockman’s rebounds, it was the little things that helped the Huskies pull off the upset. Against a more talented UCLA team, Romar said, the difference was the grit, the toughness that has been absent during Washington’s four-game losing streak.
It was Dentmon harassing Collison for most of the night, it was Pondexter skidding on his chest across the W at mid court to corral a loose ball. It was Artem Wallace banging under the basket all day with UCLA freshman phenom Kevin Love, who scored just three points in the first half and 13 in the game.
“We’ve been talking to our team about toughness and believing that we could win,” Romar said. “We had lost both of those for a while. Today was only one day, but I thought against one of, if not the nation’s best team, we showed as much grit as a team could show. And trust me, that was the only way we were going to win that game.”
Washington had a seven-point lead at halftime, but needed to keep scrapping in the second half. After Washington extended the lead to nine points, UCLA quickly cut it down to three. Washington again built a nine-point lead with 11 minutes left in the game, and again, UCLA quickly cut the deficit to three points.
UCLA stayed alive in large part thanks to success at the free throw line. At one point in the second half, the Bruins made just one field goal in 10 minutes, but made 12 straight free throws to stay alive. Washington, meanwhile, was nearly undone by free throws once again, making 16 of 30 in the game, including 10 of 21 in the second half.
The Huskies — and their fans — were finally able to breathe easier and start celebrating when a Brockman layup made the score 68-61 with 39 seconds left, and an ensuing turnover led to a foul on Washington’s best free throw shooter, Ryan Appleby.
“It’s a great experience for our team to know that we’re able to play with anyone,” said Pondexter. “We came out and played hard and aggressive, and we pretty much owned the floor for 40 minutes.”
The Huskies will now head to Oregon for a pair of road games where they will try to look like the team that beat a top-five opponent, and not the team that lost four in a row before that.
“That’s just a sign of inconsistency, and that’s something you can’t have on a basketball team,” Brockman said. “It’s great to enjoy this win, but at the same time, we should all just feel horrible and sick and stupid for playing the last four games the way we played. It’s great to enjoy it, but after seeing what we can do when we really play together with effort, with intensity and have a good game, you can look back and just kick yourself.”
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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