Huskies Accept Senior Day Gifts, Then Hand One to USC and Lose
The University of Washington basketball said good bye to its seniors in a pre-game ceremony. Played in front of a full house. Had every reason to celebrate.
However, the Huskies let a mediocre season rise up once more and spoil everything. In what should have been a happy occasion, they lost 82-75 to USC, the Pac-12's 11th-place team, on Saturday in the final regular-season game at Alaska Airlines Arena.
Sentiment and a tight squeeze just didn't count for much as Keion Brooks, Sahvir Wheeler, Moses Wood, Paul Mulcahy, Nehemie Kabeya and Braxton Meah said farewell to their home floor with a loss.
Earlier, UW coach Mike Hopkins — was this his last home game, too? — had said he had watched previous teams of his go through the ceremony and have nothing left for the real thing.
This was one of them.
The Huskies (16-14 overall, 8-11 Pac-12) should have given back their framed jerseys and bouquets of flowers and started over.
"We celebrated and then it was time to get down to business, and we didn't do that," Brooks said.
All they had to offer was a highly motivated sophomore in Koren Johnson, who came off the bench and led his team with 21 points.
USC (12-18, 6-12), while having plenty of troubles this season, swept the series with the UW.
On Senior Day, the Huskies couldn't handle a freshman, 6-foot-5 guard Isaiah Collier from Atlanta, normally a 16.3-point scorer. He had 14 by halftime as the Trojans took a 39-38 lead. He finished with a game-high and a career-best 31 points on 14-of-20 shooting.
"He single-handedly put them on his back and didn't let us come back in the end," Brooks said.
The Huskies were as unfocused against USC as they were locked in against UCLA two days earlier.
Wheeler shot an airball on the Huskies's first attempt 20 seconds into the game. Mulcahy threw away a pass. Brooks gave one up. It was going to be that kind of day.
"Gosh, can't explain it," Hopkins said. "I felt like the juice at start of the game, we didn't have juice. I felt like the batteries were empty mentally."
The Huskies went scoreless for nearly the first three minutes of play and trailed throughout the initial 13 and a half minutes, going down by as many as 10.
The UW was behind 15-5 when the wispy Collier got free for a layin.
Things were so out of kilter for the home team a Husky yell leader tossed a cheerleader into the air and nearly dropped her during a timeout at the 11:26 mark of the opening half.
Brooks and Johnson finally got the Huskies to settle down some. With the UW trailing 19-14, the two players combined for 11 points to put their team ahead for the first time. Johnson did the honors with a corner 3-pointer while falling backward, a shot that went in for a 27-25 advantage with 6:27 remaining in the half.
Yet the UW soon was trailing by seven again when D.J. Rodman — the son of Dennis Rodman and a former WSU player — banked one in for a 39-32 edge with 1:45 left.
Brooks, fouled on a 3-pointer while trying to beat the clock, hit all three free throws to pull the UW within 39-38 at the break, giving him 15 points of his 20 for the game.
The Huskies found themselves down by 10 again at 49-39 when guard Boogie Ellis tossed in a 3-pointer to complete a 10-1 USC run to open the second half.
Hopkins' crew trailed by as many as 15 at 71-56 when Rodman lost his balance and threw one in from the key right before the shot clock went off.
The Huskies crept within three a couple of times late, beginning at the 1:30 mark, when Brooks dropped in three more free throws to make it 76-73, but Collier responded every time down the stretch, scoring eight points in a row inside the final two and a half minutes. It wasn't his day yet it was.
"We couldn't guard Isaiah Collins, bottom line," Hopkins said.
The final UW home game of the season couldn't end quick enough.
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