Huskies get back to basics in 84-69 win against Cal

Jan 19, 2010, 12:00 AM

Calm and under control, UW senior Quincy Pondexter tried to put into words the message his basketball team had just sent with an 84-69 throttling of first-place California on Saturday. "It just says that we're really capable of doing a lot of things this season still," Pondexter said. And maybe he's right. The Huskies did exactly what they needed to last week after failing miserably the week prior, sweeping Stanford and Cal with a fervor and energy not seen at Hec Edmundson Pavilion since the Brandon Roy era. Washington used a 26-4 run to take a 33-12 lead with nine minutes left in the first half, blowing the doors off a Cal team that was picked to win the conference and entered Saturday as the only Pac-10 team with one loss. The Bears are now tied for first with Arizona State, and the Huskies, tied for last before the weekend began, now sit just a half-game out of first. It may take a win at UCLA on Thursday to truly convince the conference that the Huskies are, in fact, back. The UW, thus far, has failed to do much of anything away from home. But last week's efforts seem to have more to do with a commitment to fundamental basketball than with the home-court advantage. "It was things that we can control," Pondexter said. "We can control our energy and our effort ... We have way too much talent to waste it." Isaiah Thomas may have embodied that the most, the big-time scorer also turning into a defensive stopper against one of the biggest scoring threats in the league, Cal's Jerome Randle. Thomas guarded Randle nearly the entire game, holding him to five points, and zero in the first 28 minutes, just one game after Randle dropped 39 points on Washington State. "It's easy to overlook it, but this is the second game in a row where Isaiah Thomas has played stellar defense," UW head coach Lorenzo Romar said. "I just thought Isaiah had a great amount of concentration, and I think he deserves a lot of credit for that." A motivated defensive effort allowed Thomas and Pondexter to play a run-and-gun game more suited to their styles, Thomas going for 20 points and Pondexter pouring in 25 as the Huskies forced 22 turnovers and turned the second half into a lay-up drill as they took a 77-48 lead with just under eight minutes left in the game. Pondexter won Pac-10 Player of the Week for the third time this season, averaging 26 points and 7.5 rebounds during the two-game sweep of Stanford and Cal. "For our guys to come out and play the way they did, I couldn't be happier," Romar said. "This was one of our better weekends, I think, since we've been here, in terms of our play." Others noticed, too. Matthew Bryan-Amaning's dunk over Stanford's Drew Shiller was No. 2 on SportsCenter's nightly Top 10 on Thursday, and then Darnell Gant's facial over Cal's Max Zhang registered as No. 1 on Saturday. All signs of a team beginning to get its swagger back. "We have to start from scratch and prove to people that we are a talented team, and we have to come together," Pondexter said. "And once we do those things, then the sky's the limit for us still. We still have a great possibility of doing some things in March, and that's what our goal is." Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.

Stay up to Date

Subscribe to our weekly newsletters covering the news, arts, and sports.

Huskies get back to basics in 84-69 win against Cal

Disruptor interrupts Psych 210, professor and students chase man on to Red Square

2025 Seattle and King County primary election endorsements

UW mechanical engineering students are now required to pay $250 quarterly fee to participate in department-affiliated RSOs

College Inn Pub reopens under new ownership