SEATTLE — If you didn’t watch Washington’s Thursday night game against California — or if you didn’t catch the final score — it might have seemed like coach Lorenzo Romar was describing a victory on Friday afternoon.
He praised his team’s defensive effort, which limited Cal to just 39.3 percent shooting from the field and forced 16 turnovers. He noted UW’s renewed dedication to boxing out and protecting the offensive glass — Cal still had more rebounds (54 to 44), but the Huskies had more offensive boards and second-chance points. And Romar said the Huskies took better care of the ball, because they committed only seven turnovers.
But they still lost, 78-75, for their fourth consecutive defeat — each by single digits, three by five points or fewer — and their third Pac-12 home loss of the season.
With just four regular-season games remaining, the Huskies own a 15-11 overall record and a 7-7 mark in Pac-12 play. They desperately need to beat Stanford (13-11, 6-7) on Saturday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion to retain any hope of earning an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament, to say nothing of the treacherous road trip to Oregon State and Oregon that awaits next week.
Romar, though, does not seem particularly discouraged by the losing streak, or by the opportunity the Huskies fumbled on Thursday.
They can beat Stanford, he said, “if we come out and do most of the things we did last night. And I say most, because one of the things we did not do was win the game.
“But I look back and there are other games where we’re all fired up because we won, and maybe we made free throws in the last two minutes, maybe we made eight or nine 3s in that game, and the end result was that we won. Well, the end result (on Thursday) was we lost. So it doesn’t look as good. But I like our chances, anywhere, if we do a lot of the things we did last night.”
They certainly need to shoot better, both from the field and at the free-throw line. UW attempted 70 shots against California and made only 23 of them — and only 4-of-17 from 3-point range — and the Huskies made just 25 of their 38 foul shots.
“They just didn’t go in last night,” Romar said. “We just did not shoot the ball well. Around the rim, I do think Cal’s length bothered us a little bit. You look at Cal’s defensive profile, they’re pretty good, defensively. But we still also had a lot of looks that we weren’t able to convert.”
And that’s just kind of how things have gone for the young Huskies in recent weeks. They lost by five points at home against Arizona after allowing 17 offensive rebounds. They lost by eight points at Utah after allowing the Utes to shoot 67.3 percent from the field. They lost by one point at Colorado after allowing the Buffaloes to rebound nearly half of their own missed shots. If the Huskies had only slightly improved upon their most glaring weaknesses in any of those games, they could still be competing for a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament.
This is in contrast to how UW started Pac-12 play. The Huskies won five of their first six conference games, four of which were decided by five points or fewer, two of which were decided in overtime. Romar said at the time that those close victories would be nothing more than “fool’s gold” if the Huskies didn’t correct their flaws, which were apparent then but masked somewhat by their sparkling record.
And now …
“That’s exactly what I was talking about,” Romar said.
“Our team is so resilient and doesn’t have quit in them (so) that we’d find a way to get it done. But sooner or later, if we weren’t able to knock the foul shots down, if we weren’t able to hit those 3s, if we weren’t able to impose our will and force turnovers, then we weren’t doing the things that were necessary to really win games at a high, high level.
“And here we go again, back to — our decision-making wasn’t where it needed to be. We were giving up too many blow-bys and not keeping teams off the backboard. So that’s exactly what I was talking about. But again, in spite of a loss, I was encouraged last night, because we went a long way in getting better at some of those deficiencies.”
The Cardinal recently assembled a four-game losing streak of their own, but snapped it with a 76-72 victory over 16th-ranked Oregon last week and won 72-56 on Thursday at Washington State. They’re capable, obviously, of beating anyone in the league, and are led by the 15.4 points per game of senior forward Rosco Allen.
But they are not an opponent to which an NCAA tournament-caliber team should lose at home. This is as “must-win” as a game can be, though Romar obviously says the Huskies aren’t thinking about the big picture.
Instead, they’re emphasizing improvement in the aforementioned areas: preventing dribble penetration, rebounding and taking care of the ball.
“Those are our musts,” Romar said. “That’s how we look at it.”
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