LOS ANGELES – About 18 hours before tipoff, the Washington Huskies finally learned who they will play in their Pacific-10 Conference tournament opener at 2:30 p.m. today.
Top-seeded UW will meet No. 9 Stanford, which advanced with a 62-54 win over No. 8 Oregon State in the tournament-opening game Wednesday night.
“(The Huskies) are the conference champions,” Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins said. “We have to go out there and play a very, very good 40 minutes. It’s going to be a physical game, it’s going to be hotly contested, and we have to be prepared for it.”
The Huskies will take the court at the Staples Center with very little specific preparations – they were already off the practice floor when the Stanford-OSU game ended. But they also maintained all week that their opponent shouldn’t matter.
“Something we’ve really focused on this year is that it doesn’t really matter what else happens if we take care of ourselves,” senior forward Jon Brockman said. “If we play the way we need to play, then that’ll solve all of our problems.”
That approach made sense because the Cardinal and Beavers had little in common for coach Lorenzo Romar and his staff to focus on.
“Stanford and Oregon State are completely opposite to prepare for,” Romar said. “Stanford doesn’t play as much zone, Oregon State plays all zone. Stanford tries to be a little more up-tempo, Oregon State takes the air out of the ball.”
One thing both schools had in common was an 0-2 regular-season record against Washington. But while the Huskies routed OSU twice, they won nail-biters against Stanford: 84-83 at home Jan. 8 and 75-68 on the road Feb. 8.
“We have to limit our unforced errors against a team like Washington, because they turn turnovers into points,” Stanford senior guard Anthony Goods said. “That’s going to be the biggest deal, as well as stopping them from scoring in the paint.”
Today’s winner advances to the Pac-10 semifinals at 6:10 p.m. Friday against the winner of today’s game between No. 4 Arizona State and No. 5 Arizona. Washington split with the Wildcats during the regular season, but they swept the Sun Devils, who swept Arizona.
Meanwhile, the only team to sweep the Huskies this season – California – is on the other side of the bracket, as is regular-season runner-up UCLA.
That isn’t pure coincidence. The tournament bracket is intended to reward the league’s regular season champion.
However, Romar isn’t willing to say that his team caught any break with these pairings – including their opening opponent today.
“Stanford had us beat here at home, and we were able to win the game but it was a one-point game,” Romar said. “In this Pac-10, it’s just too difficult to say if we caught a break or didn’t catch a break. The two that I didn’t think we match up as well against (Cal, and USC due to its big guards); yeah, they’re on the other side. But that’s not to say the ones we’re playing on our side are any easier games. We swept SC, Cal swept us; both are bad matchups for us.”
The other challenge the Huskies may have to face at this tournament is focus.
Washington is coming off a celebratory week in which they clinched their first outright Pac-10 regular season championship and then received a flurry of conference awards.
Trying to remain focused with that week behind them and the NCAA tournament looming isn’t easy. Only three of seven regular-season champions have also won the tournament championship since the Pac-10 tournament was revived in 2002.
However, the Huskies unanimously say they want their second title in as many weeks.
“The sky’s the limit for us as long as we bring it every night,” freshman guard Isaiah Thomas said. “... We’re going to come in and win ballgames, we’re going to be good, and we’re not going to be satisfied with nothing. We win this Pac-10, we’re not satisfied: We want to keep winning.”
Don Ruiz, 253-597-8808
blogs.thenewstribune.com/uwsports
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