No Big Deal, Huskies Have Zero Inside Presence, Lose to Oregon

The Oregon Ducks played shorthanded on Saturday afternoon, going without leading scorer Chris Duarte. The 6-foot-6 senior guard sat out with an injury.

No matter, the University of Washington basketball team has turned up all season without any bigs of consequence in the lineup. The Huskies continue to pay a stiff price for that, too.

Repeatedly attacked inside in this conference encounter, the UW shot well early and hung close for 10 minutes until they wore down and stumbled to an 86-74 loss at Matthew Knight Arena.

The Huskies (3-14 overall, 2-10 Pac-12) dropped their third game in a row while getting swept on this road swing through Oregon.

In program history, a UW basketball team has reached the 17-game mark of a season in worse shape just once before — in 1993-94, Bob Bender's first team went 2-15.

The good news is there's likely no more than eight games left of this sorry campaign.

Asked to size up the season, Husky senior point guard Quade Green had this to say, "I can't really comment on that."

Well put.

At Oregon (10-4, 5-3), UW coach Mike Hopkins waited just 40 seconds before he started messing with his overmatched front line.

He impatiently yanked 6-foot-11 sophomore starter Nate Roberts.

A player with a great physique but limited offensive skills, Roberts tossed up an air ball that wasn't close and he exited quickly. Marcus Tsohonis, eight inches shorter, replaced him.

"I was sending a message — it was lack of focus for me," Hopkins said, though pointing to a defensive breakdown.

For the first time since early in the season, Hopkins chose not to call on 7-4 sophomore Riley Sorn during the opening half. Sorn, who led the UW in rebounding two days earlier against Oregon State with 6, has a wondrous reach but he's restricted by his lack of stamina and strength.

Sorn didn't enter the game until the second half when Roberts got into foul trouble.

"No, not really," Green said, when asked if he feels his team is outsized on game nights. "It comes down to our toughness, really. We need to box out and get them off the glass. We did that part of the game."

Otherwise, the Huskies went much of the way with four guards on the floor at any one time. They made a game of it only for those first 10 minutes. They hit 7 of their first 11 shots.

However, the glaring absence of quality big men always catches up to this team.

It's one reason the Huskies are one of the worst rebounding teams in the nation, 335th out of 340 teams. They generally give up 10 more than they get, and they got handled 32-21 by this Oregon team.

Green topped the Huskies in scoring with 23 points. Tsohonis, who does everything except start, chipped in 15 points on 6-for-10 shooting.

However, Roberts provided just 2 points and 2 rebounds up front. Sorn, even in his more limited outing, was a little better with 7 points and 2 boards.

Leading 18-14, the UW got blitzed by a 15-2 run and this one was effectively over, with only the final margin to be determined.

Oregon's bigs, 6-11 Franck Kepnang and burly 6-6 senior Eugene Omoruyi, directed the assault. They combined for 10 consecutive points in this spurt, collectively working the block for a pair of putbacks, a bank shot and even a trey. Omoruyi, a Rutgers transfer, led all scorers with 25.

By intermission, the Ducks had pulled in front 42-31.

Midway through the second half, Oregon went up 65-45 and 68-48 and the Huskies had the charter busses idling outside the arena.

Any number of shortcomings could have been faulted, beginning with the front line.

Green chose to blame himself for too many turnovers.

"That's pretty much on me," he said. "It's pretty much poor point guard play. We're turning the ball over way too much really. We've got to fix that by tournament time."

All of that would be overly hopeful.

Follow Dan Raley of Husky Maven on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven

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