UW Bottoms Out Against Utah Valley in Empty Arena

There weren't many fans. Not a lot of points. No Husky assistant coaches or Jamal Bey to be had. Zero 3-pointers.

On Tuesday night at Alaska Airlines Arena, the University of Washington basketball team tried to work its way through any number of shortages but lost badly to the Utah Valley Wolverines 68-52.

The gymnasium was virtually empty because of the latest pandemic surge, a competing Seahawks football game on TV, the encroaching holidays and a general lack of interest in a group of Huskies (5-5) where mediocre might be an overly generous description.

All of this made the home team fair game for mid-major Utah Valley (9-3), which is coached masterfully by former Stanford standout Mark Madsen, who has his guys playing so well they earlier upset BYU.

The Wolverines took full advantage of the UW with their very active big man Fardam Aimaq, even though they were missing two of their better players that surround him.

Madsen funnels everything through Aimaq, a 6-foot-11, 245-pound center from Vancouver, B.C., and an Afghan native who averages a healthy double-double of 19.8 points and 13.5 rebounds an outing. On this particular night, Aimaq provided 15 points and 15 rebounds against the Huskies, giving him his nation-leading 10th double-double this season.

Three other teammates supported this guy by working off him for 10 or more points, led by sophomore guard Le'Tre Darthard, who finished with a team-high 16.

As for the UW, coach Mike Hopkins had to go it alone on the sideline. Each of his assistant coaches, Will Conroy, Quincy Pondexter and Wyking Jones, stayed home because of COVID issues. Bey, a 6-foot-6 senior forward and a starter, missed the game because of virus protocols, too.

The Huskies' Terrell Brown Jr., the Pac-12's leading scorer, basically had to go it alone on the floor. He rang up 23 points, two more than his average. He didn't have much help.

West Virginia transfer Emmitt Matthews chipped in 10 points, but the other three UW starters, Nate Roberts (2), Cole Bajema (2) and Daejon Davis (1) were virtually invisible as scorers, which was roundly pathetic.

The Huskies also left no mystery as to how they were going to put the ball in the basket. They finished 0-for-11 from 3-point range, with Bajema missing the most behind the line, four attempts.

Looking for any kind of help, Hopkins even used 7-foot-5 junior Riley Sorn in a game for the first time all season. Sorn was on the floor for just over a minute of the opening half, long enough to pick up a personal foul.

The Huskies don't play again until Dec. 29, when they open conference play at Washington State (8-4). It could be a long, difficult winter that eventually calls for a coaching change if things don't improve dramatically, COVID or no COVID.

Over three seasons now, Hopkins-led UW teams have lost 39 of their past 53 games. Not many people tend to survive a slide such as that.

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