Inside The Huskies

It Was Ultimate Huskies' Kiss of Death in Eugene

The UW squanders everything at the end to Oregon on an unlikely four-point play.
Dan Raley|
Oregon forward Kwame Evans Jr., right, is fouled by Washington's Quimari Peterson for a four-point play.
Oregon forward Kwame Evans Jr., right, is fouled by Washington's Quimari Peterson for a four-point play. | Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The kiss of death.

This will forever describe the 2025-26 University of Washington basketball season from its hopeful start to its unmerciful finish.

The year the Huskies had one of the top freshmen in the country and squandered him.

The time they wound up with just seven of 15 scholarship players able to dribble and chew gum at the end.

Worst of all, it was the moment they were wringing the Oregon Ducks' necks with the clock ticking down in Eugene, poised for an unlikely season sweep of their rivals, and incredibly let them off the hook.

Of all the goofy things that have happened to this UW team this winter, giving up a four-point play with 11.6 seconds remaining to decide things at Matthew Knight Arena on Saturday night, moved to the top of the list.

Just when a school official was telling everyone in the media the Huskies were on the verge of their second-largest comeback win in school annals, the record book slammed shut on his fingers.

The Huskies went from 21 points down in the first half to up by three with a post-game shower and happy return flight beckoning to an inexplainable 85-79 loser in a blink of the eye.

Years from now, basketball archeologists will dig into this one and try to explain how the Ducks scored nine points over the final 11.6 seconds.

You couldn't find a bigger giveaway than that at a Costco free sample stand.

Oregon center Nate Bittle, right, embraces forward Kwame Evans Jr. after they beat the Huskies.
Oregon center Nate Bittle, right, embraces forward Kwame Evans Jr. after they beat the Huskies. | Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

On the inbounds play, it took two passes and two dribbles for the ball to end up in the hands of Oregon's 6-foot-10 Kwame Evans, who was guarded by the Huskies' Quimari Peterson, who was nine inches shorter.

Peterson was one of four UW guards on the floor.

The former Southern Player of the Year apparently bumped the Ducks' forward.

He should have took him off his feet.

Left him clutching his side.

Screaming in pain.

Anything except jostled and left upright enough to rattle in the most unseemly 3-pointer.

The Huskies rallied from a 31-10 deficit to go up 79-76 in a most courageous fashion.

Then they gave it all away.

They took their blackjack winnings and bet it all on one play and left town penniless.

In the overall scheme, it merely dropped the Huskies below .500 (15-16 overall, 7-13 Big Ten) and really affected nothing more than conference tournament seeding.

Yet regardless of any injuries or circumstances or excuses, it was an incredible waste of basketball good fortune.

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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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