SEATTLE — Whenever Jazmine Davis and Regina Rogers get together for one of their frequent gab sessions, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll leave more than a few stones unturned.
Movies? Let’s just say they aren’t Siskel and Ebert.
Comic books? They’ll leave Batman and Robin to the experts, thank you.
Music? Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are best-suited for that … unless you’re talking about the sweet cacophony of squeaking sneakers.
When the dynamic duo of the University of Washington women’s basketball team get together, Davis and Rogers are usually talking about one thing — and only one thing.
“We talk a lot of basketball,” said Davis, a freshman point guard who has emerged as just the sidekick the 6-foot-4 Rogers needed during her senior season. “People would be surprised.”
Other than their unrelated decisions to leave the state of California and play basketball for the Huskies — and their obvious love for the sport — Davis and Rogers didn’t share much commonality heading into the 2011-12 season, their first playing together in college. But lately they’ve been nearly inseparable when it comes to talking about UW’s offensive production.
“It’s incredible,” said sophomore teammate Mercedes Wetmore, who moved from point guard to off-guard this season to replace injured star Kristi Kingma in the lineup. “Coming into this season, Kristi’s out and we’re wondering where a lot of the scoring is going to come from. We know Regina can put up big numbers every night, but to see Jaz come out and play aggressively and score like she has, it’s awesome for us.”
Rogers, a Seattle native who started her college career at UCLA before deciding to transfer back home three years ago, didn’t know anything about her incoming freshman teammate until Davis began taking summer classes at UW a few months ago. They joined up on an adult rec-league team in North Seattle and quickly formed a mutual respect.
“I went home and said: ‘Jaz is a great player.’ I was telling everyone: ‘We’ve got a great point guard coming in,’” Rogers said Thursday night, after the pair combined for 44 of UW’s 49 first-half points in a blowout win over Arizona.
Davis, a 5-7 freshman from San Jose, Calif., was equally impressed with her powerful teammate.
“I thought she was unstoppable,” Davis said of her first impression of Rogers. “Regina’s a really hard person to guard. I feel bad for any person that got behind her.”
Rogers (15.6 points per game) and Davis (14.4) are far and away the top two scorers on the Huskies, accounting for almost half of the team’s points (30.0 of UW’s 63.8). They have been UW’s two scoring leaders in nine of 18 games this season heading into this afternoon’s matchup with Arizona State.
While coach Kevin McGuff said he would prefer a more balanced scoring attack, he conceded it’s nice having Rogers and Davis around to carry the load.
“Jaz and Regina are both pretty good,” he said. “So us getting them pretty good shots is something we’re going to try to do.”
Both Davis and Rogers know that having the other one around helps create opportunities.
It’s only been 18 games, but the dynamic duo certainly has been making the most of their year together so far.
“In the next three years, she’s going to be a really good player for us,” Rogers said.
When reminded that she won’t be around for any more of the Davis era after this season, the talkative Rogers needed just two words to sum up her feelings.
“I’m bummed,” she said.
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