Thiel: Huskies barely survive bruises in Bay Area

The annual trip to the Bay Area has brought the Huskies men's basketball team back to earth. But at least they are not below.

Three days after a terrible defeat against a Cal team that had not won the conference at Pac-12, Washington rediscovered its defense just enough to hang on, 62-61 against Stanford on Sunday. Afternoon in Palo Alto.

Despite the 76-73 defeat of the Bears, UW (23-6, 14-2) is sure to win its third conference crown and the fifth conference championship since 1953, thanks to the defeats of the United States. Oregon State and Arizona State. But whoever thought that the Huskies would be out of the embarrassment of losing to the Bears (2-15, 7-22) on the Cardinal was wrong.

Early and often, the Huskies had to play eight draws and 17 head changes before imposing themselves against the Cardinal (15-14, 8-9), who generously missed 10 of his 25 free throws and is fallen from his own hand.

At least the Huskies, whose defense is leading the Pac-12 with an average of 64 points, were grumpy.

"We had four saves on the last five possessions," said coach Mike Hopkins. "We were hard.

"I felt in the Cal match, we played pretty well in the offensive, but we did not fight on the defensive, we had to go back to what we were doing." Stanford was 0-8 games under 70 points.Now they are 0-9.This was the key. "

Victory did something proud, but did not forget the argument that being the Pac-12 champion was nothing more than being the biggest dwarf in the world.

The Huskies still have home games against the state of Oregon on Wednesday (at 7 pm, Pac-12 networks) and on Saturday against Oregon (at 7 pm, ESPN) prior to the start of the league tournament at Las Vegas. But two more wins are unlikely to overshadow the Berkeley debacle, the first bad defeat of the winless season.

Assuming that the Huskies win the league tournament – a presumption much larger than a week earlier – the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee could give the Huskies a less favorable seed than the purple optimists envisioned. And if they do not win the automatic place that goes with the title of the tournament, the shot goes rather small because of the decisive factor of the Pac-12.

But at least the Huskies did not spit a second time.

"After the Cal match, they were all over the Internet, they were talking about it, it's over; they are not so good, "said Hopkins," That's all that Twitter is talking about.If we worry about this, we will not be good.What it is, it's BS .

With 10 seconds to go, Jaylen Nowell missed the start of a free kick to a goal and one to give the cardinal a chance to win. Stanford, who defeated Washington State 98-50 on Thursday, found himself with a 3-point shot in disequilibrium from J.Z. Okpala, who has recruited more than two dozen NBA recruiters to watch a possible lottery choice. He missed the match and the biggest hosts could not stop Noah Dickerson from bouncing back because of the sound of the horn.

Okpala, who had 22 points in the first team meeting, was limited to six points and four rebounds.

At 15 minutes from the end, Nowell, Dickerson and the Naz Carter reserve all had four fouls. But none was wasted when Hopkins stirred the range and found enough production through backups.

"When we had problems, our bench gave us very good minutes," Hopkins said. "We did not play very well, but it was a team effort. After this loss (Cal), the sky fell. "

Nowell led Washington, who shot 35 percent of the field (identical to Stanford), with 13 points. Stanford, who played without starter Daejon Davis, former star player of Garfield High School and rookie in Washington State, due to a foot injury, was led by the senior seven-foot center Josh Sharma with 16 years old.