Frigid Huskies Can't Come in from the Cold, Lose to Auburn
The 23rd-ranked Auburn basketball team wore all-white game uniforms, was backed by the most vocal section of fans in the arena and never trailed, not once.
One might have thought this non-conference encounter was played in the heart of the South.
No, just south of University Village, but the Washington Huskies still treated it as a foreign and unfriendly environment, losing 84-61 to their SEC visitors from Alabama on Wednesday night at Alaska Airlines Arena.
On a cold evening in the Northwest, the Huskies (9-4 overall, 1-1 Pac-12) brought the chill inside while running up and down their home court without much creativity at all.
Even with a decent crowd of UW fans on hand for this intersectional match-up, sharing the place with those vocal Auburn followers, the guys in the all-purple threads simply were miserable on offense. It was a huge letdown for all involved.
The Huskies didn't score their first basket until five and a half minutes were played — and it came on freshman guard Koren Johnson's driving lay-in while using his wrong hand against the Tigers (10-2).
The locals hit the 10-minute mark of the first half with seven points and just two field goals made, making it abundantly clear it was going to be a long night for Mike Hopkins' team.
We let bad offense affect our defense and we can't allow that to happen," the coach said.
Auburn big man Johni Broome dunks on the Huskies.
Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports
Not even the presence of offensive-minded Husky quarterback Michael Penix Jr., the nation's leading passer who occupied a front-row seat at midcourt next to leading one of the UW's top donors, could inspire his basketball brethren to get anything going in terms of putting the ball in the basket.
Hey, even current football coach Kalen DeBoer and former UW leader Chris Petersen, plus former Husky point guard Isaiah Thomas were in the house, but still nothing resembling any consistent point production was apparent all game.
As the opening half wound down, the Huskies fell behind by 15, at 27-12 and 29-14, before scrambling to pull within 29-23 on Johnson's three-point play with 22 seconds left before the break and settling for a 31-23 deficit when it came.
Auburn's 6-foot-8 senior forward Jaylin Williams provided nearly half of his team's first-half points with 14 while working unchecked inside and finished tied for game honors with 6-foot-10 sophomore teammate Johni Broome, both with 18 points.
The Huskies had no one with more than 5 points at that juncture, a total shared by the aforementioned Johnson and one-time SEC player Keion Brooks.
To that point, the stat-keepers' job was fairly straightforward: just track the misses. Over the first 20 minutes, the UW shot a frigid 7 for 33 from the field, or a lifeless 21.2 percent, and 2 for 13 from behind the line.
Maybe trying too hard, Brooks might have had his worst outing in Montlake, at least half, while facing the SEC that he had left behind. On this night, he hit just 2 of 9 first-half shots before getting untracked and coming up with a team-best 15 points.
At intermission, colorful Auburn coach Bruce Pearl couldn't have been faulted if he had the team's charter bus idling outside the arena, ready for a quick getaway with the outcome fairly obvious.
With the Huskies down 25 at the five-minute mark, fans began leaving the arena in large numbers.
This team doesn't play again until Dec. 30 when it hosts USC, which Auburn 74-71 recently in Los Angeles, in Alaska Airlines Arena. Maybe it will find some offense by then.
Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published.
Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.
Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12
Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3
Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.
