UW Slide Began Against Stanford -- Will Slumping Cardinal Provide Relief?
The Washington basketball team has come back to where all the misery began.
A game against Stanford.
Forty-two days ago, the UW showed up in Palo Alto, California, without its point guard and left without its soul.
Barely an hour before tipoff against the Cardinal, the school announced that sophomore playmaker Quade Green, the Kentucky transfer, was scholastically ineligible.
Everyone knew the situation was dire, but no one -- not the coaching staff, the players, the media or the fans -- knew exactly how season-changing this moment would be.
That night, the Huskies blew a 12-point lead and dropped a 61-55 decision to the Cardinal.
Facing Stanford (16-9 overall, 5-7 Pac-12) a second time on Thursday night, the Huskies (12-14, 2-11) have lost eight consecutive games and won just one of 11 outings after becoming this leaderless team.
While the banished Green helps out in practice and sits on the bench during Huskies home games, coach Mike Hopkins' team has completely lost its bearings without him and it's painful to watch.
The UW sits deep in the conference cellar, two and a half games behind the nearest team, California (10-15, 4-8), which visits Alaska Airlines Arena on Saturday. The Huskies are down to five conference games.
No one has been able to adequately replace Green for any great length of time -- and many have tried. Sophomores Elijah Hardy and Jamal Bey, plus freshman Marcus Tsohonis, have each been given a chance to direct this team on the floor, sometimes two of them teaming up at a time.
The Huskies' best chance of returning to the win column over the next month will be against Stanford or California.
Both Bay Area teams come north with four-game losing streaks. Cal, which plays at Washington State first, has not won a road game.
The Huskies are 40 minutes from tying the second-worst losing streak in school history; they've lost nine in a row on four other occasions.
Stanford helped start this mess. Will the Cardinal provide some long overdue relief?
