Huskies drop Pac-12 opener to UCLA despite big night from Isaiah Stewart
It almost seem unfair for Isaiah Stewart to be sitting in front of reporters on Thursday night, tasked with explaining Washington’s 66-64 loss to UCLA.
Stewart pieced together a stat line that has become routine for him: 24 points, 11 rebounds, five blocks. He’s reached double figures in every game this season and has averaged 25 points and 10.7 rebounds over the Huskies’ last five games. Unfortunately, two of those games resulted in a loss.
Stewart needs help, that much became painfully clear during UW’s latest defeat. Afterward, he sat with hunched shoulders and quietly discussed everything that went wrong.
There was the slow start that led to the Huskies trailing 34-24 at the half. There was the rebound margin — UCLA out-rebounded UW 38-27 and finished with 22 offensive rebounds to the Huskies’ 11. There was a stagnant and struggling offense, and a defense that allowed UCLA’s Jake Kyman to finish with seven 3-pointers and 21 points. Entering the game, he had 18 points on the season.
All of that led to UW’s second straight loss and its fourth of the season. Stewart offered the same analysis that’s been repeated often over the first 14 games of the season. The Huskies have all the talent they need. It’s the execution that’s lacking.
“It’s a lesson,” Stewart said. “Let’s see how we respond tomorrow in practice. We see how when we come out and play slow what happens. … We have so much talent. We just have to put this together.”
The first half was a disaster for UW. It shot 34.8 percent from the field, including 2-of-8 from the 3-point line. Only one player — Stewart went 2-for-5 — made more than a single field goal. UCLA, who shot 41.4 percent in the first half, scored seven second-chance points off 10 offensive rebounds.
“The first half, (UCLA) did a good job,” said head coach Mike Hopkins. “They took away all reversals so any play that we ran, the next pass was not there. We had to be able to adjust to that. Our guys looked a little bit like, ‘Wow, what are they doing?’ That caused some problems.
“We figured it out in the second half. We went direct from the point guard to the big. We made that adjustment. We had lack of ball movement, lack of player movement.”
To make matters worse, standout freshman Jaden McDaniels had four fouls — including a technical he received while sitting on the bench — by the time the buzzer sounded for halftime. It was McDaniels’ third technical foul of the season. Hopkins didn’t see it happen, but he said he thought the call stemmed from McDaniels throwing the ball back to the official with too much force.
“I was really upset,” Hopkins said. “We just can’t do that. We can’t have that type of behavior. We need him to play. That gave him his fourth foul. We just can’t do that. There’s no place in the game for it, on the team. We got to just get better.”
Hopkins put McDaniels on the floor at the start of the second half, but he fouled out in less than four minutes. That was a blow to the Huskies, who have struggled to find reliable scoring behind Stewart. Nahziah Carter finished with 16 points against UCLA while Quade Green added 11. No other player scored more than four points.
Head coach Mike Hopkins tried a little bit of everything to jump start his team. Freshman RaeQuan Battle played his first meaningful minutes of the season, and Hopkins pieced together lineups that included both Battle and sparsely-used forward Nate Roberts. But nothing seemed to work, at least not until after halftime.
Whatever happened in the Huskies’ locker room, it allowed them to flip a switch. They started the second half on a 17-4 run that erased the Bruins’ 10-point advantage. With 14:04 left in the game, UW claimed its first lead since the opening minutes. After Green pulled the Huskies within one point on a transition layup, sophomore Jamal Bey stole the in-bounds pass and scored on a layup to put UW up 39-38.
“At that point, ditch everything and draw that line and just play ball,” Stewart said of the message at halftime. “The coaches can’t do it for us. We have to go out and play hard. They can’t put the ball on the ground and put it in the basket for us.”
UW and UCLA went back-and-forth after that, trading leads and ties with neither team pulling ahead by more than three points.
With 32 seconds remaining, Jaime Jaquez Jr. hit two foul shots to give UCLA a 63-61 advantage. At the other end of the floor, Carter responded by draining his first and only 3-pointer of the night to put the Huskies back in the lead, 64-63, with 24 seconds left.
But when UW returned to play defense afetr a 30-second timeout, it lost sight of Kyman. He took advantage of the open look to drain his seven 3-pointer — and this one was the game-winner. The Huskies in-bounded the ball with 8 seconds remaining, but Carter turned it over on an attempted drive to the basket.
“It looked like we lost our poise in that situation,” Hopkins said of UW’s final defensive possession. “Those types of situations, hopefully this becomes a learning experience for us. Hate to lose and learn, but sometimes you need to do it. See how we respond, get better in practice. … In this business, you’ve got to have a short-term memory.
“We’ve got a good team. We’ve got high quality players. But we’re making some mistakes that are costing us in big games and we’ve got to fix that. That’s three close games now that last year we were winning the close games and this year we’re struggling with those.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2020 at 11:04 PM.
