There’s winning ugly on the road. There’s stealing a win on the road. And there’s what the Huskies did on Sunday afternoon at Gill Coliseum, which falls somewhere in between.
Washington managed to salvage a road split of the Oregon schools with a 75-72 win over Oregon State. It was a win that was neither pretty nor easy. But in the end, the Huskies got out of the Willamette Valley still tied for first place in the Pacific-12 Conference with California at 10-3 and knowing they could have easily gone 0-2 on the trip.
“Big picture, we are tied for first place and going back home for two games,” said coach Lorenzo Romar. “Big picture, I would prefer that to the alternative. Although some of the wins may not have looked pretty, somehow we were able to get them done.”
And that’s all that matters for the Huskies (17-8 overall) – win and keep pace with Cal.
Right now, Washington knows winning the Pac-12 regular season title is a must to get invited to the NCAA tournament. And even that won’t guarantee a bid.
“We know if we don’t win it outright, we’d (likely) have to win the Pac-12 tournament (to get in) and that’s really hard to do,” said guard C.J. Wilcox.
It was that scenario that made Thursday’s blowout loss at Oregon so disappointing for the Huskies. It was that scenario that made Washington play with a significantly higher energy level on Sunday.
“We had to bounce back from (the loss to Oregon), and I think we did,” said guard Terrence Ross, who scored 21 points and pulled down 13 rebounds against the Beavers. “It was a big loss. We had to get that out of our mind.”
While the effort and energy were better to start the game, Washington was far from perfect in the first half. The Huskies managed to forge a halftime tie at 31, despite 34.3 percent shooting from the field, six turnovers, committing 11 fouls and giving up some open looks.
The Huskies were helped by 4-for-12 free-throw shooting by Oregon State (15-10, 5-10)in the first half.
But instead of splintering when things weren’t going well, as they had against Oregon, the Huskies stayed together and played through the struggles.
“We knew how serious this game was, and nobody wanted to give a game away like that,” Wilcox said. “We’ve let games go like that before.”
Washington was unable to take control until late. But a key sequence midway through the second half helped give the Huskies a little advantage, thanks to Abdul Gaddy.
The junior point guard threw three good – if not spectacular – passes during a five minute span that led to a dunk for Shawn Kemp Jr., a 3-pointer for Wilcox in transition and another clean look for Kemp, who was fouled.
Gaddy later buried a 3-pointer to break a tie at 58 and give the Huskies a lead they would never relinquish.
“I wasn’t going to let us lose,” said Gaddy, who finished with eight points, four assists, five rebounds, two steals and just one turnover.
Gaddy has taken his share of criticism this season, but Romar said he thinks the final 10 minutes of the game were some of his point guard’s best minutes of the season.
“It was huge,” Romar said. “It’s plays like that us coaches know why he’s on the floor a lot. He’s capable of doing that. He hasn’t had stretches where he’s done that. But tonight that was the Abdul Gaddy I know.”
Tony Wroten followed Gaddy’s 3-pointer with a put-back to push the lead to 63-58.
It was a needed cushion, because Ahmad Starks (14 points, seven rebounds, four assists) and Jared Cunningham (23 points, seven rebounds) kept OSU hanging around at the end.
Starks buried a 3-pointer with 22.6 seconds remaining to pull the Beavers to 70-68. OSU fouled Desmond Simmons on the next possession. The redshirt freshman calmly sank both free throws to push the lead back to four.
When Cunningham missed a long 3-point attempt on the ensuing possession, Ross rebounded, was fouled and buried two more free throws to secure the Huskies’ fourth road win of the season. All four were by six points or fewer.
“We know when we play on the road, we have to grind out wins,” Wilcox said. “We aren’t going to blow out teams or play amazing. Weird stuff happens. You have to be able to grind it out to get the job done.”
Washington got the job done.
“I just felt that wasn’t our team the other night,” Romar said of the 82-57 loss at Eugene. “To see our guys bounce back from the loss, I’m very pleased. I thought we did a good job of moving on.”
Ryan Divish: 253-597-8483
ryan.divish@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/uwsports
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