Inside The Huskies

Huskies Enter the Bruins' Den -- Punishing Pauley Pavilion

The UW comes looking for its first win at UCLA in a decade.
Dan Raley|
Hannes Steinbach looks for a shot against UCLA in Seattle.
Hannes Steinbach looks for a shot against UCLA in Seattle. | Dave Sizer photo

Sporting a near break-even record with a roster not even two-thirds available, the University of Washington basketball team will take on the ominous task of facing UCLA in Los Angeles on Saturday night at 7.

Normally a trip to Pauley Pavilion doesn't go well for the Huskies (12-11 overall, 4-8 Big Ten).

Since the place opened in 1965, the UW has won there just five times -- 1980, 1987, 2006, 20011 and 2016.

By 2, 8, 4, 11 and 2 points.

They've done it with players such as Bob Fronk hitting a game-winner at the buzzer and with others such as Christian Welp, Brandon Roy and Isaiah Thomas -- who all have their jerseys retired in Seattle -- leading the Huskies to victory at Pauley.

Yet the UW's overall body of work in this arena is hardly optimistic: UCLA leads the series at Pauley 5-54.

The Bruins lead the overall series 110-44, counting an 82-80 victory over the Huskies in Montlake in December.

The place opened in 1965 when Johnny Wooden was an unbeatable coach and his center was a guy named Lew Alcindor, later to be called Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The Huskies are 0-8 since last winning at this basketball palace, when a Lorenzo Romar-coached team pulled out an 86-84 victory in 2016.

They'll face a UCLA team (16-7, 8-4) now coached by Mick Cronin, which is coming off a 98-66 victory over Rutgers -- at Pauley.

Rubbing it in some, UCLA is led in scoring by Washington state product Tyler Bilodeau, a 6-foot-9 power forward who averages 18.2 points per game and hails from Kennewick and Kamiakin High School. He began his career at Oregon State.

The Huskies, after revealing that two of their freshmen in JJ Mandaquit and Jasir Reacher likely are out for the season, will enter this difficult place to play with an extremely young lineup.

Danny Sprinkle starts 6-foot-11 freshman forward Hannes Steinbach, and sophomores Zoom Diallo, Wesley Yates III and Bryson Tucker at the guard or swingman spots, and 6-foot-11 senior center Franck Kepnang.

Everyone's been to Pauley is some capacity, with some team, with the exception of Steinbach, and probably greatly suffered for it.

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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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