SEATTLE – Washington women’s coach June Daugherty hasn’t lost her mind.
Some might look at her Huskies, 1-3 in the Pacific-10 Conference, and wonder what she’s thinking, but she’s not lost in wild, Mary Poppins optimism.
“We know, by the tremendous preseason that we had, that we can play with anyone on the country,” Daugherty said.
Slow Pac-10 start aside, the Huskies have been anything but a disaster. They led now-top-ranked Texas Tech up until the end. They beat a solid Notre Dame team. They lost on the road to ranked Colorado, a game in which they admitted to playing below capabilities.
Even in Pac-10 play, Washington’s losses haven’t been embarrassments. The Huskies put a scare into fourth-ranked Stanford before falling. And their first two losses – to Arizona and Arizona State – were an education for a team that carries six freshmen.
In other words, it’s hardly time to panic.
“We’re a pretty young group,” redshirt freshman guard Angie Jones said. “We have great senior leadership, as everyone knows. I think that more experience in those types of games will pay off. We’ve made mistakes that are very easily correctable.”
Against Stanford, it was a three-minute fog to begin the second half, along with a failure to harass the Cardinal’s three-point shooters. Against Texas Tech, it was rare, faulty shot selection at the worst time possible. Players themselves said they didn’t show up at Arizona with the right intensity, something that happens to young teams.
Theoretically, those should be in the rearview mirror. The Huskies, who executed a 180-degree turn in defensive philosophy in the offseason (to an attack-style, physical, frenzied mode), should be more comfortable and effective as the season progresses.
At times, the UW’s defensive style has taken teams completely out of their offense. That figures to be the case on any given night in Pac-10 play as the lapses disappear.
The lapses and mistakes they’ve seen this season should gradually lessen. A lot of it is experience. And each freshman is getting just that.
“They have had the opportunity to get a lot of experience,” Daugherty said. “We’ve played 13 games. I expect them to execute. They have to. There are times when they do it very well. But it’s not just the freshmen. Our upperclassmen made a lot of mistakes as well.”
It’s early in the season, but it’s not a reach to think that this weekend’s games – tonight at USC and Sunday at UCLA – border on the must-win category. Getting to .500 in conference play with Oregon, Oregon State and Washington State coming next into Hec Edmundson Pavilion takes some pressure off the rest of the season.
Defensive consistency appears to be the key. In games against Oklahoma State, Gonzaga, Denver and Cal, Washington’s defense forced turnovers and turned them into points.
“We need to bring our defensive system for the whole game,” true freshman forward Maggie O’Hara said. “We have times when we don’t get to the places on defense we need to. Once we can thoroughly execute our defensive system, everything’s going to fall in together.”
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