Citizen Staff Writer
UA BASKETBALL
JOHN MOREDICH
jmoredich@tucsoncitizen.com
University of Washington coach Lorenzo Romar warned his players about getting burned against an Arizona team that was ninth in the Pac-10 standings.
They didn’t listen.
“We have to bring it. We talked about it all week,” Romar said. “Sometimes you can tell a child not to touch the stove, but until he touches it he doesn’t really believe it is hot. With us tonight, maybe we thought we were OK.”
The first-place Huskies weren’t OK, losing 106-97 on Thursday for only their second loss in the past 15 games.
“I think we just came out there with what coach calls our ‘cool’ jackets on,” Washington’s Jon Brockman said. “We thought we could just come out and play cool and that didn’t work for us. That’s not what got us where we are.”
Arizona set a McKale Center record for attempts and conversions by making 41 of 51 free throw attempts.
The Wildcats were 34 of 40 in the second half.
Washington was not complaining about the free throw difference, even though Washington was just 13 of 20 from the line.
The Huskies blamed themselves – and Arizona point guard Nic Wise.
“We had to result to fouling and pressing and trapping,” Romar said. “It got away from us a little bit. We had to get to that point because they were very aggressive and we couldn’t guard them.
“This is definitely a step back in terms of how we have been playing. We could not defend well. It all started with Nic Wise. He really controlled that game.”
Washington had no trouble putting up points.
“We scored 97,” Romar said.
It was the 106 that really bothered the Huskies.
“No defense. That’s all there is to it,” Brockman said. “There was a whole lot (wrong). I could go on and on. We didn’t come out and execute the game plan like we wanted to.
“We focus on defense with every single guy doing his job. We didn’t have that. We didn’t defend as a team.”
And Washington got burned.