It wasn’t what the 9,912 in attendance expected at Alaska Airlines Arena Saturday afternoon as the Huskies fell, 72-64, to the Oregon Ducks, in Washington’s regular season finale.
The building and the Huskies lacked energy for most of the game. One of the loudest cheers of the afternoon came when senior walk-on Greg Bowman made the opening layup to give the Huskies a 2-0 lead. That would be about the only notable highlight for UW in the first half as they headed to halftime down, 44-29.
Oregon made 8-16 3-pointers in the first half and had nine second chance points to UW’s zero.
But Washington wouldn’t go down without a fight.
After trailing by as much as 16 in the second half, UW would fight their way back to trail, 68-64, with 3:12 remaining – after a pair of Noah Dickerson free throws. The crowd went into a frenzy the last five minutes of the game trying to will Washington to an all important victory. But it wasn’t to be as UW would fail to score in the final 3:11 of the ball game.
“We got to do that from the jump,” a disappointed David Crisp said after the game about their late comeback attempt.”We can’t wait. You know we’ve been waiting too long in a few games to get things going – to play with that fire. We got to play with that from the jump. We got to be self starters as coach said.”
David Crisp’s 19 points led the Huskies.
Noah Dickerson had another good game, finishing with 18 points on just seven shots.
Jaylen Nowell was the third Husky scoring in double-digits, finishing with 12 points.
The loss couldn’t have come at a worse time for UW. Washington came into the game in what many thought to be on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament “bubble.” Washington will have one more chance to fight their way into the tournament, with the Pac-12 tournament beginning next week.
“It’s a great opportunity,” Coach Mike Hopkins said about next week’s Pac-12 tournament.”You love to play in your conference tournament and hopefully a postseason tournament. That’s what all that hard work throughout the year – preseason, conference, and get the opportunity to play in the Pac-12 tournament. So I’m really excited to be apart of it. I heard it’s an incredible tournament. Las Vegas is a great city and I know the kids will be looking forward to it.”
Washington next heads to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 tournament. The Huskies will be the No. 7 seed and face the No. 10 seed Oregon State Wednesday night at 6 p.m.
