How Low Can They Go? Huskies Flirt With Historic Failure

The Washington basketball team rests firmly in last place of the Pac-12 Conference standings. All alone in its despair.

The Huskies (12-11 overall, 2-8 Pac-12) find themselves a full game behind Oregon State (13-9, 3-7), the only opponent they've beaten over the past month.

The losing has been a shock to everyone's system in Seattle.

The players' faces get a little more blank and somber with each new setback.

Fans are incredulous.

Even third-year coach Mike Hopkins looks and sounds shaken.

"You can't feel sorry for yourself," said the Huskies leader, paying difficult dues after being named Pac-12 Coach of the Year in each of his first two seasons. "You can't be the victim. You can't say this and you can't say that. Everybody has to look in the mirror."

They're not going to like what they see. No matter how anyone sizes it up, the situation surrounding these 2019-20 Huskies is dire indeed.

The record book will verify this: Consider that in 120 years of competition, UW basketball teams have finished up in the proverbial cellar just twice -- and never in the current 12-team alignment, which has been in place for a decade now.

In 1959-60, John Grayson's Huskies, the first of his four teams, finished in fifth and last place in what was known as the Big Five with a 15-13 record overall, 2-9 in league play. After moving over from Idaho, Grayson proved to be a bad hire who was fired three years later.

In 1990-91, Lynn Nance's second UW team pulled up the rear of the Pac-10 Conference with a 14-14 showing, 5-13 in league play. A former Huskies player and procured from St. Mary's, he was fired two years later. Nance's clubs finished ninth, 10th, eighth and eighth.

Not even Lorenzo Romar, whose UW program bottomed out badly at the end of his long tenure, experienced such failure -- two of his final three teams slipped to 11th but still avoided rock bottom.

Hopkins' team has flatlined after beginning the season with great hope at 10-2, which included beating now No. 1-ranked Baylor, and climbing to 20th in the AP poll.

The Huskies' precipitous slide has coincided with point guard Quade Green becoming academically ineligible on Jan. 9. They've lost five consecutive games, and seven of eight, without him.

They've frittered away big leads and been beaten soundly. They've continuously shuffled personnel. They have a handful of players who have turned out to be busts.

The Huskies have eight conference games remaining to avoid becoming the third basketball team in school history to pull up the rear. It won't be easy to regroup. Five of these outings are on the road. They don't play Oregon State again either.

"The thing we keep telling the team is we're good enough," Hopkins said.

Unfortunately for him, no one seems to be listening anymore.