Road woes continue as tournament hopes dwindle

Jan 25, 2010, 12:00 AM

They had a chance to turn a corner. Instead, the Washington men's basketball team, again, ran headfirst into a brick wall. Saturday, that wall was USC, the Trojans jumping on the Huskies from the opening tip in a bruising 87-61 win that was never close and further emphasized the concern that this team simply can't win away from home. The Huskies (12-7, 3-5 Pac-10) are 0-6 on the road this season, and their NCAA tournament aspirations are slipping further and further away with every disheartening effort away from Hec Edmundson Pavilion. Two days after UCLA used a buzzer-beater to prevent the Huskies from their first road triumph of the year, they seemed to fall back into their same low-energy, lax-defense mode that has cost them so dearly away from home already this season. The Trojans ran and ran and ran, point guard Mike Gerrity leading a fast-break attack that gave USC a 19-6 lead with 12:50 left in the first half, another slow start for a UW team that has had so many on the road already. Quincy Pondexter was completely shut down by USC's bigger front line, the senior scoring a season-low two points on 1-10 shooting, the point total registering as his lowest since the season opener against Portland last year. And the Huskies simply had no answer for USC forward Marcus Johnson, a 6-foot-6-inch athletic swing-man who pounded the Huskies inside for 22 points on 9-for-11 shooting. USC's entire starting lineup scored in double figures. Venoy Overton tried to will the Huskies by himself, leading them with 18 points off the bench, 10 of them in the first half to pull UW to 42-32 at halftime. But the Trojans started the second half the same way they began the game, Nikola Vucevic hitting a 3-pointer on the Trojans' first possession to give them a 13-point lead. That was the closest it got. The Huskies, known for being a running team, offered little to no resistance in transition. They didn't defend the perimeter, and they had no chance against USC's bigger front line. Vucevic had 11 points and 13 rebounds, and forward Alex Stepheson scored 15 points. Washington returns home tomorrow to face Seattle University in its final non-conference game, then plays Washington State on Saturday. The Huskies are assured of a below-.500 finish to the first half of the Pac-10 season, something that seemed unfathomable in the preseason when the Huskies were picked by the media to finish second in the conference. They'll be hard-pressed to do that now, even if they somehow figure out how to win a road game. California leads the conference at 5-2, three games ahead of a now-reeling UW squad licking its wounds as it returns to the friendly confines of Hec Ed. Nothing has worked away from there. They've lost two close games that they had every chance to put away. And they've also been blown out. Saturday's game was the most recent in that disturbing trend. Players coined a new motto after being swept by the Arizona schools two weeks ago: "We all we got," meaning that they have to play for themselves, and nobody else. There doesn't seem to be much left to play for now, anyway. Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.

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