Inside The Huskies

Huskies Will Face USC After It Parts Ways With Top Player

Chad Baker-Mazara was dismissed on Sunday by the Trojans.
Dan Raley|
Chad Baker-Mazara (4) lets out a roar against Rutgers.
Chad Baker-Mazara (4) lets out a roar against Rutgers. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

It's that time of the year when a bunch of college basketball teams quit playing with any discernible enthusiasm and need to be put out of their misery.

However, two of them -- Washington and USC -- will face each other on Wednesday night at Alaska Airlines Arena in a Big Ten game that could be determined by who shows up with the least amount of apathy.

Just when the Huskies turned in their worst performance of the season in losing at home to Wisconsin 90-73 in a matchup that was hardly that close, the Trojans one-upped them on Sunday by suddenly tossing leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara off the team amid a five-game losing streak.

No reason was given for the dismissal, though the 6-foot-7 guy from the Dominican Republic has a resume that might be described as sketchy as best -- he's 26 years old and was playing for his fifth college basketball team, one of which was a junior college.

Either way, the Trojans (18-11 overall, 7-11 Big Ten) will come to a Seattle without their 18.5-point scorer to tackle a UW team (14-15, 6-12) that had just seven scholarship players available for the Badgers.

Meanwhile, the Huskies will be trying to overcome an embarrassing defeat, made much worse because it happened in a game set aside to honor former UW standout Detlef Schrempf with the retirement of his No. 22 jersey and a big crowd on hand.

In Decmeber, the Huskies faced USC with Baker-Mazara, and he came up with a team-best 21 points on 5-for-14 shooting, yet the UW pulled out an 84-76 victory in Los Angeles. He averaged 18.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game for the season.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Baker-Mazara was jettisoned not for any specific incident but for "an accumulation of issues" that hasn't been made specific.

A year ago, he played for an Auburn team that made it to the Final Four and lost in the semifinals to eventual national champion Florida 79-73.

On Saturday, Baker-Mazara played just 19 minutes in the Trojans' 82-67 loss to 12th-ranked Nebraska. He left early in the second half after going down with an apparent leg injury.

Baker-Mazara was the centerpiece of this Trojans team, earning MVP honors in the Maui Classic during the preseason and a big factor in the previous 18 victories. But he won't be there Wednesday night in Montlake.

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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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