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They had a losing record in the lightly regarded Pacific-10 Conference, and their 0-6 record away from home had become a glaring embarrassment.
Then several things happened that transformed the season – so much that the newly crowned Pac-10 tournament champions will begin NCAA tournament play at 4:20 p.m. Thursday, facing Marquette at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif.
“The regular season was filled with a lot of ups and downs,” forward Quincy Pondexter said. “But at the end, I think we’ve been playing as good of basketball the last couple of months as anybody. You’ve got to compare our team to some of the best in the country. We’ve come through adversity on the road.”
Coach Lorenzo Romar and team captain Pondexter don’t quite agree whether the turning point came during or immediately after UW’s late-January trip to Los Angeles.
But since then, the Huskies have been a different team.
The Huskies began that trip Jan. 21 with a last-second 62-61 loss at UCLA. And that was followed two days later with an 87-61 embarrassment at USC.
“That L.A. weekend was really tough,” Romar said. “The loss the way we lost to UCLA and then to compound that by getting blown out the way we did the next game was tough.”
However, Romar also traces the first signs of a turnaround to that agonizing loss at UCLA – his team not only played well, but did so in a road arena that had long been difficult for them.
Pondexter points to the USC game as the turning point. That one-sided defeat dropped Washington to 12-9 on the season and 3-5 in the Pac-10. And as the Huskies flew out of Los Angeles, their chances of an NCAA tournament bid seemed very far away.
But since that rock-bottom day, UW has won 12 out of 14 games (and the past seven overall) and seven in a row away from home.
In terms of personnel, Romar said he thinks several Huskies have stepped up.
Pondexter provided steady leadership. Guard Isaiah Thomas began sharing the ball better. Guard Venoy Overton provided his usual defense while increasing his presence on offense.
But the two most dramatic contributions have come from junior forwards Matthew Bryan-Amaning and Justin Holiday.
“(Bryan-Amaning) has been very, very good in our last dozen games or so … blocking shots, rebounding, giving us an inside presence that really, really helped us,” Romar said. “He’s come alongside Quincy and Isaiah and given us scoring. And then Justin Holiday’s play since being inserted into the starting lineup has really given us a lot of energy and focus and all-out grit.”
Holiday moved into the starting lineup Jan. 14 and immediately began providing defense and making his teammates better. He went on to be named to the Pac-10 all-defensive team.
Bryan-Amaning opened the season as a starter, then lost his job at midseason to freshman Tyreese Breshers. However, he was back in the starting lineup Feb. 13 at Stanford, and has since been among the best big men in the league.
“Matthew put it upon himself to come out to practice … and really try to be dialed in to be the best that he can be,” Romar said. “He has become a defensive presence. He’s a guy that’s putting out fires for the other guys (with his shot-blocking). … And I think he’s doing a better job of taking care of the basketball himself. It’s made us better.”
Their midseason wobble behind them, the Huskies are sailing into the NCAA tournament at a high point. High enough that they think they can go further than last season’s team, which was eliminated in the second round.
“We have a real roll we’re on right now,” Pondexter said. “We found our identity a lot later than last year’s team did. This team, we kept getting hit in the head with the same thing over and over again. I think we learned a lot as a team, and we’re really clicking at the right time.”
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