Washington Wastes Hot Shooting in 75-72 Home Loss to Arizona

Water is wet. The sky is blue. Washington collapses in the final 10 minutes. The Huskies couldn't hold on to a 9 point second half lead and fell to Arizona 75-72 wasting a brilliant team shooting performance. The loss drops the Huskies to 12-10 (2-7) and extends their losing streak to 4 games.

Washington tried to get Isaiah Stewart going early on but it was not his night. Stewart started out 1/5 from the floor and Arizona hit their first two 3-pointers on the way to an early 21-11 lead.

Stewart was still able to be useful though as he drew 4 early fouls to send Arizona starting bigs Zeke Nnaji and Stone Gettings to the bench for much of the half. Naz Carter hit his second triple of the game to help reignite the Washington offense and a Hameir Wright 3 punctuated the 11-4 Husky run to get back in it.

Washington's shooting barrage continued as Tsohonis hit his first attempt, Wright nailed 3 free throws, and a Battle deep shot put the Huskies on top for the first time at 31-30. Arizona answered with a 3 of their own through on the next possession and went into halftime on top 36-33 after a late contested corner 3 by Max Hazzard.

Washington's hot shooting continued through halftime as Bey knocked one down on the 1st possession and Naz and Wright joined the party giving UW back the lead and forcing an Arizona timeout. The latter two were part of an 14-2 UW run that ended with an Isaiah Stewart 3 and put the Huskies in front 50-41.

But the Wildcats wouldn't go away and Arizona scored on 3 consecutive possessions to keep the margin within single digits. Jaden McDaniels threw down a monstrous dunk that should've brought the house down but was the beginning of the end for UW.

McDaniels was assessed a technical foul for his boisterous reaction and the resulting free throws were part of an instant 7-0 run to cut the lead down to 2. Washington extended the lead back out to 5 on several occasions but Arizona countered with a basket or 2 of their own. Hameir Wright seemingly blocked a 3-point attempt but was called for a foul and Arizona made all 3 free throws plus a 3 on the next trip down to regain the lead for the first time in 14 minutes of game clock.

RaeQuan Battle hit a long 3 for UW with 2 minutes left to put Washington back on top but once again Arizona knocked down a 3 of their own a minute later to retake it. Battle missed an off balance long 3 with 25 seconds left and Arizona corralled the rebound and that was seemingly all she wrote. The Huskies had a shot though as Arizona missed the front end of the resulting 1 and 1 while up by only 3. Jaden McDaniels grabbed the rebound but dribbled the ball off his foot straight to an Arizona player as he brought the ball up the court. However, another missed front end gave UW a 3rd chance at life but Marcus Tsohonis air balled a 3-pointer in the final seconds.

The leading scorer for the Huskies was RaeQuan Battle with 14 points as 3 other Dawgs (Carter, Wright, and McDaniels) finished in double digits. Isaiah Stewart picked a terrible time for one of his worst games of the season as he shot 3/13 from the field to end up with 9 points and a team high 11 rebounds. Washington finished with 17 turnovers including 4 each from Jaden McDaniels, Naz Carter, and Hameir Wright. The Dawgs shot a season high 14 3-pointers (50%) but couldn’t overcome Arizona’s +9 free throw make advantage combined with the 7 turnover deficit.

Washington will look to pick up the pieces against Arizona State at 7:30p on Saturday night.