Inside The Huskies

Huskies Were More Feisty Than Usual At Northwestern

Hannes Steinbach and Zoom Diallo received technical fouls in the road game.
Dan Raley|
Hannes Steinbach, regularly shoved around, drew a technical foul at Northwestern for protesting the treatment of him.
Hannes Steinbach, regularly shoved around, drew a technical foul at Northwestern for protesting the treatment of him. | Dave Sizer photo

At Northwestern, the University of Washington basketball team was at its defensive best, with Franck Kepnang tying his career high in blocked shots with 6.

Wesley Yates was good on both defense and offense, especially from 3-point range, where he dropped in 5 of 8 shots behind the line.

Zoom Diallo stepped up as the closer, scoring 13 of his team's final 17 points in the 76-62 victory over their hosts in Evanston, Illinois.

Notably, the Huskies (12-10 overall, 4-7 Big Ten) were a little more feisty than usual in Saturday's game -- Hannes Steinbach and Diallo each drew technical fouls.

In 21 previous games, the UW was whistled for two technicals in all of that time, with one going to coach Danny Sprinkle and the other to Yates at Washington State.

In this case, Sprinkle said all the right things after the Northwestern game, about his team needing to be more mature, about his guys needing to show more control.

"We have to be more disciplined," said Sprinkle, who privately had to be encouraged by his team's combative spirit.

Steinbach regularly gets shoved around and double-teamed as this standout 6-foot-11 freshman forward and he even hit the floor at Northwestern, with an opposing player trying to help him to his feet.

He was whistled for his technical foul just six minutes into the game after he was running side by side with an official to the other end of the floor and said something that wasn't well received.

"He's been getting frustrated because he gets beat on quite a bit," Sprinkle said. "I don't know about that play, I don't know if he got fouled. The physicality he has to play through, game after game after game, he's getting tired of it. To be honest, I'm getting tired of watching it, guys holding his jersey."

Zoom Diallo reacts to a play in a recent UW game.
Zoom Diallo reacts to a play in a recent UW game. | Dave Sizer photo

With 1:35 left to play, Diallo got heated with multiple people on the Northwestern bench, gesturing and stepping toward them before getting pulled away, but not before barking at Wildcats coach Chris Collins.

The Northwestern leader later said he told Zoom to "Just chill, man."

Both Diallo and the Northwestern bench were given technicals.

"I'm not sure what happened to Zoom," Sprinkle said. "I think him and their bench, everybody was talking, and I'm sure Zoom was talking. We've got to be more mature than that."

Or, on the other hand, maybe the Huskies should stay the course and remain as deeply offended as they were on Saturday and let people know it.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Published
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.

Home/Basketball