Hoosiers Hammer Huskies Without Much Trouble

Twenty-nine games into a season fast coming to an end, the University of Washington basketball team showed once more why it is the last-place team in the Big Ten and it's not a typo.

Why conference tournament play has never been a reality, no matter what the mathematical possibilities were.

Most of all, why Danny Sprinkle needs to give everyone leaving the program a commemorative jersey in a frame next weekend and keep recruiting.

On Saturday afternoon at Alaska Airlines Arena, with the sun shining bright through the cathedral windows facing Mountlake Boulevard, in a perfect setting to take on one of the college game's most storied basketball programs, the Huskies were basically a no-show against the Indiana Hoosiers, losing 78-62.

A near capacity crowd was there, including a lot of people in red shirts. The Big Ten Network. A bunch of former UW players, including the extra inspirational Nate Robinson and his new kidney.

These Huskies? Nowhere to be found.

Sprinkle's first UW team (13-16 overall, 4-14 conference) just didn't seem interested with the season finishing up in mind-numbing fashion, with a fourth consecutive loss, and fifth in six outings.

"For whatever reason, and it's my fault, we haven't been like connected, where at the end of the day it's like important to everybody," Sprinkle said. "That's just the truth. We have some guys where it's just not the most important thing -- and that's a problem. I recruited them here and that's on me."

The Huskies led 3-0 and 5-3 and that was it. The Hoosiers (18-11, 9-9) put together a 12-0 run to move in front 15-5 and this one was never in serious question thereafter.

No one for the home team played any discernible defense, with an Indiana lob over the top resulting in surefire points and wide-open lay-ins the norm.

DJ Davis couldn't shoot the 3-pointer. Tyree Ihenacho couldn't dribble much without getting stripped. Great Osobor put on his uniform and never really got beyond that moment.

It's well known as Osobor goes, so do these Huskies -- yet for a designated white-out game, he and his teammates raised a flag and did an immediate surrender.

During the week, Sprinkle said his guys needed to play for the name on the uniform. They obviously never heard him. The stitches might have well just fell out of the purple lettering that said Huskies.

"I've never lost like this," Sprinkle said. "I't's hard, it's hard. Im looking at what do we need to do as a program moving forward."

If only this Husky team could play as hard as the UW basketball band does. On Saturday, those purple-shirted and trombone-, trumpet- and saxophone-proficient students really worked up a sweat and got after it.

On the floor it was different. A second-half shot went up and missed, and Indiana's Luke Goode tipped the ball in -- with four Huskies standing helpless all around him. Truly, it wasn't a fair fight, with these black-shirted Indiana Hoosiers playing so determined.

Osobor carelessly threw the ball way twice in the first two minutes. The 6-foot-8 senior power forward supplied only a pair of free throws before halftime but nothing else in terms of points. He finished with 4 points, all on foul shots, missing all five of shots from the floor in 24 minutes of forgettable play.

Just inside the 10-minute of the opening half, the Huskies trailed by 15 when reserve Indiana guard Myles Rice hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key, making it 24-9.

For that matter, reserve forward Malik Reneau of the Hoosiers topped all scorers with 22 points, connecting on 10 of 13 shots.

Even the subs had their way this UW team.

"I knew it was going to be a challenge," Sprinkle said. "I knew that when I took the job. I knew the first year would be brutal."

Everything for the UW, set to pull up the rear of the standings, now comes down to a road game at USC on Wednesday night and the regular-season finale at home against Oregon on Sunday afternoon in eight days.

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