SEATTLE — During the past three seasons, all the University of Washington men’s basketball program has done is win 76 games, earn its first Pacific-10 Conference regular-season title in 56 years, hoist two conference tournament trophies, play in seven NCAA tournament games, advance to the Sweet 16 two years in a row and turn out three NBA draft picks.
Well, that’s not really all.
Along the way, the Huskies also have raised expectations for a program that used to just be satisfied with making an NCAA tournament appearance every two or three years.
Maybe that’s why, despite another strong team that could be in the mix for a Pac-12 title by season’s end, this year’s Huskies are trying to be realistic.
“We’re not asking for time, but with the younger guys, it’s kind of tough to get the system down,” sophomore wing C.J. Wilcox said this week. “We did it in spurts (in an exhibition win last week over Seattle Pacific), but getting it down for 40 minutes takes a lot of maturity and focus. When we get that, it won’t be too long before we’re playing the right way.”
It’s fair to say that there is tempered excitement about this year’s Huskies, who were picked fourth in preseason Pac-12 polls and received a few votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. UW probably has enough pieces to be good, but the big question is whether the Huskies have enough to be great.
Sophomore Terrence Ross and freshman Tony Wroten Jr. could be stars-in-waiting, but both of them are still trying to establish themselves at the collegiate level. The rest of the UW roster is made up of role players and green-as-grass freshmen.
Darnell Gant, who will be the only healthy senior scholarship player when the Huskies take the floor for today’s official season opener against Georgia State, is excited about this team’s potential even though there aren’t any obvious stars.
“It’s more along the lines of all of us coming together collectively and getting it done,” said Gant, who added that the 2011-12 Huskies are “a real talented, athletic team that’s motivated to getting better every day.”
How quickly UW’s group of freshmen make an impact this season could be a huge factor in how far the Huskies go. But until any of them make fans forget recent stars such as Isaiah Thomas, Matthew Bryan-Amaning and Quincy Pondexter, the jury is still out on the 2011-12 Huskies.
Not even glass-half-full head coach Lorenzo Romar seemed overly optimistic about this being another conference champion and Sweet 16 contender when asked earlier this week whether this year’s Huskies can live up to the expectations set by previous teams.
“We always talk about being the best that we can be,” said Romar, whose team plays three home games over the next three days to open the season. “And if we are the best that we can be, then, yeah, we can end up being somewhere close.”
If Romar has pause in projecting his current team as having another NCAA tournament run, it’s because this is one of the youngest squads he has had at UW. Eight of the 15 players are listed as freshmen, including 2010-11 redshirt Desmond Simmons.
“We’ve never had a team where it’s half-and-half,” he said, “in terms of upperclassmen and (freshmen). … So that makes it unique and different. Certain things that we’ve been able to do when we’ve had more veterans, we haven’t been able to get to them as quickly. So it makes it different that way.”
When asked how the youth will manifest on the court, Romar said: “Depending on who’s in the game, I would think maybe early (there will be) some inconsistency.”
Romar added that typical freshmen can have a breakout performance or two during the non-conference season, but the true consistency probably won’t come until Pac-12 play begins in January.
“Sometimes guys just catch on quicker,” Romar said. “It’s really hard to say, really hard to say. Usually around mid-December, it starts to get right with younger players.”
While Wroten appears to be the most intriguing of UW’s current players, the role of main offensive weapon might fall on a sophomore who reached double digits in just 12 of UW’s 35 games last season.
Ross, a 6-foot-6 guard from Portland, was the star of the Huskies’ NCAA tournament loss to North Carolina and enters this season with high expectations. The wiry, athletic player has the potential to dominate games but has been known to struggle with consistency, shot selection and aggressiveness.
Romar isn’t willing to tag Ross as the next in line at a school with go-to scorers such as Thomas and Pondexter in recent years.
“I think there are several guys who can step up for us and make plays at the end of games,” Romar said when asked about Ross as a potential primary scorer. “Whether it’s a playmaker who can penetrate and dish to someone else, or us putting someone on the block to score, or us just running somebody off a pick for a jump shot, I think we have a number of guys.
“I shouldn’t say a number, but there are several.”
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