Inside The Huskies

Huskies, Sun Devils Tip Off for Second Time in 3 Days

This challenged UW basketball team will try to improve on Tuesday's 33-point defeat.
Dan Raley|
Huskies, Sun Devils Tip Off for Second Time in 3 Days
Huskies, Sun Devils Tip Off for Second Time in 3 Days

The University of Washington basketball team likely is three games from being put out of its misery.

These Huskies are suffering through one of the worst seasons (5-18 overall, 4-14 Pac-12) in program history.

The team is coming off its second-worst defeat of the season — 97-64 to Arizona State.

The losing margin to the Sun Devils was a point fewer than their 34-point blistering by Baylor (86-52) in the season opener.

However, Tuesday's game had to be a season low point since ASU was playing short-handed, missing all three frontline starters and a bunch of subs.

On the other hand, the Huskies had everyone available.

At least physically.

Mentally, well, that's another story.

Jamal Bey turned in a decent first half, scoring 12 points. 

Nobody else in a Husky throwback uniform that day will want to remember this particular match-up at all.

The UW and ASU face each other again today/Thursday at 4 p.m. in Tempe, Arizona, with no reason to think the outcome won't be similar.

Hopefully, for everyone's sake, this game will be closer. 

Halving Tuesday's 33-point loss might be something to shoot for.

Entering this season, Mike Hopkins' latest Husky team was glaringly low on talent.

Everyone knew it except the coach.

Only Marcus Tsohonis and Bey have made any significant advancement as players.

Mostly, this team has regressed in just about every category.

These Huskies don't rebound. Often don't play defense. Don't share the ball. 

There's no reason to think this team collectively won't mail it in from here on out, also losing on Saturday to Arizona and 11 days later to their Pac-10 tournament first-round opponent, presumably Washington State.

Hopkins keeps explaining how his UW players somehow show up with no energy, no pop, nothing.

What he doesn't say is this team simply isn't very good at all. 

Tipoff is an early one, coming at 4 p.m. today.

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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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