Huskies rebound from embarrassing loss

For the moment, all is right on Montlake.

The panic level has been reduced and the grumbling has subsided – call it a holiday gift. The Washington Huskies’ systematic 74-51 dismantling of Cal State Northridge on Thursday night at Hec Edmundson Pavilion was a solid answer to last Sunday’s stunning home loss to South Dakota State.

The Huskies (6-5) can now take a few days off for the holidays with their minds at ease before going back to work and preparing for the Pacific-12 Conference opener at home next Thursday against Oregon State.

“We ended it on a great note,” said freshman Tony Wroten, who scored 12 points and dished out five assists. “We lost to South Dakota State, but in this game we came together, played as a team and played great defense. It’s go-time now. We play against a good Oregon State team now, and I think we’re ready.”

Coach Lorenzo Romar said it would be time to panic if his team came out and played in a similar fashion as it did against to South Dakota State.

“We learned what we need to do better, we learned what works for us,” said sophomore Terrence Ross, who added 12 points and eight rebounds. “Tonight, we made it clear that we have to play defense to win. And that’s what we did.”

How much better was the defense? Even Romar seemed mildly satisfied.

“Much improved, much improved,” he said.

Cal State Northridge (3-9) might be the weakest opponent the Huskies have played this season, however, including Houston Baptist.

Northridge came into the game shooting 37 percent from the field and 26 percent from the 3-point range. And the Matadors served up a shooting show that will make those anemic numbers decline.

They made just 13 of 54 shots, including 2 of 10 from 3-point range. But they did make their free throws. Of the 51 points, they scored 23 from the free-throw line.

The Matadors needed almost six minutes before scoring their first field goal. They turned the ball over 22 times and missed open shots.

“They were able to get some stops on us and they turned us over quite a bit,” said Northridge coach Bobby Braswell. “We had 22 turnovers and I think they scored 21 points off the 22 turnovers. So, defensively they just got after us and we didn’t respond to that very well at all”.

How much of it was the Huskies re-energized defense, and how much of it was the Matadors’ offensive ineptitude?

“There were a lot of minutes where that effort regardless of who we are playing, especially the first 12 to 13 minutes of that game,” Romar said. “We were keeping the ball in front of us. There wasn’t a whole lot of dribble penetration. There wasn’t a whole lot of guys getting to the rim. And when they did, our rotations were on point.”

Washington rolled to a 22-6 lead, holding Northridge to just one field goal and four free throws as C.J. Wilcox buried a pair of 3-pointers and five other players scored buckets in the run.

But after the early outburst, the Huskies offense got a little sloppy and turnovers prevented them from really pulling away. They led 38-19 at halftime, but it could have been so much more.

“The first 15 minutes we played exceptionally well,” Romar said.

In the second half, Washington slowly added to the lead, but a 15-4 burst midway into the second half pushed the lead to 71-36.

Desmond Simmons had a team-high 13 points off the bench with eight rebounds, while Aziz N’Diaye had 11 points and seven rebounds in his return to action after missing two games with a knee sprain.

“You need that big presence underneath to block shots and get rebounds,” Wroten said of N’Diaye. “He makes a big difference.”

Does the dominant win completely erase the sting of Sunday’s loss? No. And it won’t help the Huskies NCAA tournament résumé either.

But Romar liked how his team responded from the loss with three solid days of practice and its motivation coming into the game. There was no need for a Knute Rockne-type speech.

“If we needed a pregame speech to get them motivated, then we weren’t going to win anymore games,” Romar said.

Five losses in the first 11 non-conference games wasn’t ideal, but the Huskies believe they know what they have to do in the future to avoid those types of losses.

“Everybody hates losing, especially at home – that’s one thing we’re not supposed to do, especially with the streak we had,” Wroten said. “So we were just trying to get on the good side. We were working super-hard in practice, especially on defense. Defense wins championships. We have to play good defense to win.”

Ryan Divish: 253-597-8483 ryan.divish@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/uwsports