Inside The Huskies

Huskies Junk Zone But Only Delay Inevitable, Lose to USC

The new-look UW basketball team still can't overcome rebounding shortcomings.
Dan Raley|
Huskies Junk Zone But Only Delay Inevitable, Lose to USC
Huskies Junk Zone But Only Delay Inevitable, Lose to USC

Mike Hopkins had to do something.

It was radical, too.

On Thursday night, the University of Washington basketball coach junked his trademark zone defense against USC, the Pac-12's tallest team, and a funny thing happened.

Nobody missed it.

However, this defensive shake-up brought time but not victory for the Huskies.

They led for much of the opening half before fading fast and suffering a 69-54 defeat to the conference co-leader and nation's 20th-ranked team at Alaska Airlines Arena.

Still, this was a vast improvement for Hopkins' team (3-15 overall, 2-11 Pac-12), which got blown out by the same team by 27 points earlier in Los Angeles and sits in 11th place in the league standings.

"We were close," Hopkins said. "We put pressure on USC, but we couldn't get over the hump."

Now if the Huskies could only do something about their inability to block out and rebound.

They got killed again on the boards.

Exterminated.

At halftime, the rebounding disparity favored USC (16-3, 10-2) by 24-9, a discouraging 10-2 on the offensive end. It was just too easy for the visitors at times. The Trojans finished up with a commanding 41-24 advantage.

"We were pretty much terrible in the second half," Husky guard Quade Green said.

Hopkins got his guys to play man-to-man defense. Now if he could only entice them to concentrate on rebounding, a nagging shortfall that has the UW ranked near the bottom of 350 teams nationwide.

The Huskies played scrappy early on, following the lead of Green. He had 14 of his team-high 16 points over the first 20 minutes. He also had 7 of the Huskies' 14 turnovers. 

Green not only looked to score, he made nice feeds, too, finding Nate Roberts for an early dunk. He hit 3-pointers, floaters, even jumpers falling out of bounds. 

This enabled the UW to lead for 15 minutes into the game, 15 minutes longer than they did in their California meeting.

Jamal Bey's left-handed driving lay-in gave the Huskies a 27-23 lead, matching their largest, with 5:47 left before intermission.

Then, zone or no zone, everything came apart at the seams. 

The Huskies got blitzed for a 16-2 run as they offered no resistance whatsoever on the boards. 

The big guys took over.

"The game got a little out of hand there," Hopkins said. 

Evan and Isaiah Mobley, plus reserve Chevez Goodwin, players who go 7 feet, 6-10 and 6-9, dropped in put-backs, dunks and one-handers and the UW fell behind by 14 before narrowing things to 41-31 at the break.

Evan Mobley topped the winners with 17 points and supplied 6 rebounds. His brother chipped in 12 points and 12 boards. Goodwin added 11 points.

The Huskies played catch up the rest of the way and even returned to the zone at times coming down the stretch.

Nothing really mattered at this point.

The UW now turns to a return match with UCLA on Saturday.

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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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