Inside The Huskies

UW Basketball Team Remains on Crash Course with Negative Notoriety

The 3-16 Huskies likely have just six games remaining and are staring at unwanted history.
Dan Raley|
UW Basketball Team Remains on Crash Course with Negative Notoriety
UW Basketball Team Remains on Crash Course with Negative Notoriety

Marcus Tsohonis is a true underdog inspiration, scoring 22 points or more on four occasions, doing this three times while coming off the bench.

Riley Sorn, at 7-foot-4, is one of two who share this height and the distinction as the tallest players in college basketball.

Jamal Bey leads the Pac-12 Conference in 3-point shooting by a wide margin at 52.2 percent.

Quade Green has stayed academically eligible for an entire season so far.

For all of the positive developments surrounding this University of Washington basketball team, one nagging disclaimer won't go away.

This group of Huskies (3-16 overall, 2-12 Pac-12) remains on a steady course to become the worst in school history. 

The most inept. 

Least victorious.

Ultimate dregs.

Through 19 games, no UW team in program annals have won fewer games than this current Mike Hopkins entry — which dropped into last place in the conference after losing to UCLA 64-61 on Saturday night while California beat Colorado 71-62 — and Bob Bender's 1993-94 Huskies who kicked off his nine-year coaching regime.

Both are or were losers of 16 of their first 19 games, for a barely there .158 winning percentage for each.

Bender's dysfunctional debut squad staggered to a disheartening 5-22 record — and 27 years later, that ledger and the accompanying final .185 winning percentage still rank as the worst in 119 seasons of UW basketball. 

Just four Husky teams have lost 20 or more games in 12-plus decades of play.

Bender's back-to-back teams in 1999-2000 and 2000-01 each crawled across the finish line at 10-20 and helped put his job in jeopardy, while Lorenzo Romar's final UW team in 2016-17 posted a miserable 9-22 record that flat-out got him fired.

Counting Monday night's game at WSU (12-9, 6-9), Hopkins' fourth crew, if it continues its losing ways and it currently has dropped five consecutive outings, has no more than six games left.

Following the trip to Pullman, Hopkins' Huskies host Stanford (13-8, 9-6) and California (8-15, 3-13) at Alaska Airlines Arena, close the regular season on the road at Arizona (14-7, 8-7) and Arizona State (6-9, 3-6), and travel to Las Vegas for at least one Pac-12 tournament game. 

The most winnable game on the Huskies' remaining schedule appears to be Cal, which earlier beat them 84-78 in Berkeley, California. 

If nothing else, these guys should focus on winning at least one more game.

One positive outcome would go along way in keeping them from making horrible history.

A lone UW victory over the final six games — leaving it at 4-21 and with a .190 winning percentage — would put an end to this all-time worst discussion. 

Second worst in school history isn't a whole lot better.

Wait a minute.

Yes it is. 

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

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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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