Downed in the desert

Did you hear it? That explosion in Tucson yesterday? It was more of an implosion, really, the Washington men's basketball team's season continuing to collapse on top of itself after another pitiful performance in the desert. First, it was Arizona State putting the clamps on the UW's fractured offense with an aggressive matchup zone defense. Then yesterday, Arizona made the Huskies look just as disoriented, using a 24-9 second-half run to propel itself to an 87-70 win over Washington in front of 12,899 at the McKale Center. Washington fans worried about their team after a 90-79 loss at home to Oregon last week, players answering questions throughout the week about whether they might be too cocky. They had no answers for anything the Sun Devils or Wildcats wanted to do this weekend. ASU went first, suffocating the Huskies in a 68-51 romp in Tempe. Rihards Kuksiks made five 3-pointers and matched his career high with 27 points, helping to bury the Huskies early in a game they never had a chance of winning. And yesterday, the Arizona Wildcats held Isaiah Thomas and Quincy Pondexter to zero points in the first half, then withstood a quick 8-0 UW run after halftime that cut the Arizona lead to 37-35. Arizona quickly pushed the lead back to six, then eight, then 10, sending the Huskies to an improbable 1-3 conference start that makes this season feel a whole lot like 2007. That year, the Huskies rose as high as No. 8 in the polls before crashing down to Earth after a 1-6 start in Pac-10 play, missing the NCAA tournament during a year in which many expected them to compete for the Pac-10 title. And that has to be considered as a possibility for this reeling UW team, now coming off three consecutive, non-competitive losses to teams with little chance of making the tournament. The Huskies (10-5, 1-3 Pac-10) may very well be in that position now. They look confused offensively, often resorting to isolated, one-on-one situations and failing to move the ball ahead of the defense. They came into the weekend averaging a conference-high 82.5 points per game, but averaged just 60.5 during the Arizona trip. They're getting nothing out of their interior game, as head coach Lorenzo Romar substituted Tyreese Breshers for Matthew Bryan-Amaning in the starting lineup in an attempt to get some more production down low. It didn't work. Breshers picked up two fouls in the first 45 seconds against Arizona and was nailed with his third before the first half ended. He finished with four points and two rebounds in just six minutes. Bryan-Amaning also continued to struggle. He was 1-6 from the field, scoring four points and grabbing just three rebounds in 19 minutes. Washington was outrebounded 40-23, a number that would have been unfathomable one season ago with Jon Brockman roaming the paint. But it's becoming obvious that these aren't the 2009 Huskies. They lack the defensive toughness that led them to non-conference routes and won them the Pac-10 last year, allowing Arizona to shoot 50 percent from the field and knock down 8 of 17 from 3-point range. About the only positive to come out of the weekend was Thomas recovering in the second half of the Arizona game to score 18 points after scoring 20 against ASU. And Abdul Gaddy, who has been quiet for most of this season, scored 13 points against the Wildcats. But it was mostly futile, as Arizona led by 15 or more for the final seven minutes. Washington will play Stanford and California at home next weekend, the latter of which was, at one point, seen as a marquee game between the conference's two powers. Now, it's simply a chance for these shell-shocked Huskies to put out the fuse on the ticking time bomb this season has become. Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com

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