SEATTLE — Less than a year ago, Washington hosted California, a top-10 team, and pulled off an upset that ranked as its best win of the year.
Eleven months later, however, the third-ranked Bears had little trouble with the Huskies at Hec Edmundson Pavilion in a 70-40 victory that extended Washington’s program-worst losing streak to nine games. Cal, meanwhile, has won 11 straight, also a program record.
Looking on was a key contributor in last year’s shocking upset, but former UW point guard Emily Florence — taking in her first game since returning from playing professionally in Switzerland — could only watch this time as the Huskies couldn’t come close to matching last season’s result.
Cal certainly looks improved over last year’s team, but Friday’s game also shows how far the Huskies seem to have fallen since last season. All but two of the losses during the current losing streak have come by 14 or more points, and things won’t get any easier Sunday when seventh-ranked Stanford — a team that beat the Huskies by 77 points last month — comes to town.
The Bears, meanwhile, have outscored the Huskies by 58 points in two meetings this season.
“They’re not third in the country for no reason,” said Washington coach Tia Jackson. “They’re fairly good.”
The Bears, and in particular the inside duo of Ashley Walker and Devanei Hampton, were in fact better than fairly good. Walker, the Pac-10’s leading scorer, led the way with 24 points and nine rebounds, both game highs, while Hampton scored 15 and grabbed eight rebounds. Those two were a big part of the reason Cal was able to out-rebound Washington 49-29 for the game. Cal’s dominance on the boards offset what was otherwise a good defensive effort in the first half for Washington.
Washington couldn’t get going on offense in the first half, shooting just 23.1 percent, but still trailed by just nine at halftime thanks to its defensive effort. The Huskies forced 11 turnovers and held Cal to 37.5 percent shooting.
“Until the shot went up, we were solid,” said Jackson. “But then we’ve got to box them out, be committed to boxing out. I think that’s where it hit us. The first half, we played great.”
Cal started the second half looking more like one of the country’s top teams, taking control with a 16-4 run in the first five minutes.
“I thought our team did a great job in the second half coming out and playing our caliber of basketball,” said Cal coach Joanne Boyle.
Boyle said that her team’s only focus was on winning another game to protect its Pac-10 lead, and not on getting revenge for last year’s loss, which cost the Bears a share of the Pac-10 title.
“No, it’s not a whole revenge thing,” she said. “It’s who we are today as a team right here taking care of business.”
Cal held Washington’s leading scorer, Sami Whitcomb, to six points on two for nine shooting, and shut out second-leading scorer Kristi Kingma. With the outside game not working, the Huskies tried to get work done in the paint, but couldn’t solve the Bears’ defense. Christina Rozier matched a career high with 12 points to lead the Huskies, while Liz Lay added 10 points and five rebounds.
“We were trying to get it inside, because they’re going to get attention,” said Jackson. “We had some success with it, Liz got 10 points … But we needed to score some more in the paint.”
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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