The Washington Huskies men’s basketball season has been mostly disappointing to this point. While Danny Sprinkle improved the talent level going into the year, the Huskies lost to Seattle U. and showed a notable gap in quality every time they played a team around the top 50 in the country.
A win against a floundering Oregon team was not going to suddenly reverse that trend, but it can certainly help. The Huskies earned a dominant, wire-to-wire victory over Oregon 72-57 on Sunday at Alaska Airlines Arena. Despite the typical shooting woes, the Huskies turned up the defense and found other ways to get enough points to get a comfortable conference win against a hated foe.
The game’s first surprise happened prior to tipoff. Zoom Diallo, one of the team’s two dependable offensive forces, started on the bench. JJ Mandaquit entered the starting five in his place. The next surprise was the Dawgs’ defensive dominance for the first eight minutes of the game. The Ducks came up empty on 11 of their first 12 possessions, with a Sean Stewart layup as the only successful trip down the floor to that point. While UW had its share of misses, it still allowed them to get out to a 14-2 lead, punctuated with a Jacob Ognacevic three.
Oregon made a run as the half continued, but the Dawgs built back their lead with a combination of offensive rebounding and uncharacteristically good three point shooting. Hannes Steinbach and Franck Kepnang both extended possessions on the offensive glass. At the same time, Ognacevic, Quimari Peterson, and Mandaquit all made threes to keep the lead at 15 points going into the break.
Despite coming off the bench, Diallo still played a key role for the Huskies. He totaled 27 minutes and scored the team’s first four points of the second half. The closest Oregon ever got in the second half was 12, after Wei Lin made three free throws. Washington quickly answered with a Kepnang two and a Peterson three on the next two possessions to slam the door shut.
Oregon is currently one of the bottom teams in the Big 10, in spite of generally being solid in recent years. The win does not turn around Washignton’s season in one game, but it was needed nonetheless. UW’s conference schedule is painfully front-loaded with top opposition. If they are going to make a run to the NCAA tournament, now would be the time to surge up the conference standings. On top of the schedule, Washington’s performance looked more like what Sprinkle had in mind at the start of the year. Ognacevic and the returning Wesley Yates made shots from the perimeter. Steinbach and Kepnang combined for 27 rebounds, good for an 18-1 advantage on the offensive boards. The Huskies took 23 more shots and 6 more threes. Basketball math finally worked in their favor. If they can maintain the approach going into a softer part of the schedule gives some reason for optimism.