Inside The Huskies

Boilermakers Make UW Look Small and Beatable

The Huskies were down 9-0 before they knew it and got swept on their Indiana road trip.
Dan Raley|
Franck Kepnang has his shot blocked by Purdue's Trey Kaufman-Renn (4).
Franck Kepnang has his shot blocked by Purdue's Trey Kaufman-Renn (4). | Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

No two ways about it, the University of Washington basketball team went 0-for-Indiana.

Three days after losing to Indiana's Hoosiers, the Huskies went 115 miles up the interstate and got pushed around by the No. 5-ranked Purdue Boilermakers 81-73 on Wednesday night at Mackey Arena.

It was 9-0 before Danny Sprinkle's team barely got out of the locker room.

Purdue next sent in its 7-foot-4, 250-pound sophomore Daniel Jacobsen, who made even Franck Kepnang look short. The big guy from Chicago slammed home a pair of lob passes and the UW was checking flight schedules back to the Northwest.

For the Huskies (9-6 overall, 1-3 Big Ten), it was a lost week in the Midwest.

"We didn't give up," Sprinkle said, looking for a positive thread.

The Boilermakers (14-1, 4-0) still had the upper hand with nearly every fact of this UW entry.

They did something no other team has done this season -- they held UW freshman Hannes Steinbach, the league's leading rebounder, without one for the game's first 36 minutes.

Purdue's 7-foot-4 Daniel Jacobsen casually drops the ball in over the UW's 6-foot-10 Nikola Dzepina.
Purdue's 7-foot-4 Daniel Jacobsen casually drops the ball in over the UW's 6-foot-10 Nikola Dzepina. | Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

With the UW trailing 45-28 at the break, the 6-foot-11 German headed for the locker room with a mere 3 points and, most surprising, those no rebounds. He finished with 17 and 4.

"That was Purdue being Purdue," Sprinkle said.

There were simply too many 7-foot-4 guys wearing a Purdue shirt.

OK, there was just one, but it seemed like there was an army of them.

The 6-foot-11 Kepnang battled the big guys and came up with his first double-double of the season, 10 points and 10 rebounds. Yet he fouled out with more than nine minutes left in the game.

Purdue's 6-foot-9 Trey Kaufman-Renn countered him with 14 points and 14 rebounds.

The Huskies were short-handed, but even if they came through Mackey with a full roster, these guys would have been hard-pressed to win.

Hannes Steinbach finds tough going against Purdue's 6-foot-11 Oscar Cluff.
Hannes Steinbach finds tough going against Purdue's 6-foot-11 Oscar Cluff. | Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

Against a team as tall as Purdue, opposing teams need an outside game.

This Husky team isn't known for that and went 9-for-27 in shooting over the opening half, and hit just 3 of 13 3-pointers.

Purdue's All-American guard Braden Smith hit 10 out of 15 shots and led all scorers with 23.

Freshman Omer Mayer, the Boilermakers' 6-foot-4 guard, came in as a 29-percent shooter from behind the line and naturally hit his first one. He sank his second one, too.

Purdue outscored the Huskies 8-2 to open the next half and it was just a matter of playing out the string. The deficit grew to 25 before the visitors cut it to eight at the end.

"I like the group that was in the last 10 minutes of the game," Sprinkle said. "We were fighting."

The UW returns home to face Ohio State (10-4, 2-2) on Sunday at Alaska Airlines Arena, with tipoff at 3 p.m.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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