Dismal Defense Dooms Huskies in 91-71 Loss at Oregon State

The 3-game burst of competence that the Huskies displayed a few weeks ago seems but a distant memory as Washington was dominated from start to finish tonight against Oregon State in a 91-71 drubbing. Marcus Tsohonis was a lone bright spot finishing with a game high 22 points but the loss dropped the Dawgs to 3-12 (2-9) on the season.

Washington’s lack of fight which Coach Hopkins chastised his team for after the loss to Wazzu seemingly reared its ugly head right from the jump. Quade Green was called for a push off foul on the first possessions of the game and Oregon State immediately answered with an open corner 3. After a wild miss by J’Raan Brooks who got a surprise start on offense he compounded the mistake by fouling a corner 3 attempt that went in. 75 seconds into the game and the Huskies trailed 7-0.

Washington finally made a few shots to close things to 13-6 over the next few minutes but Oregon State went on an 8-0 to bury the Dawgs and give the Beavers a 15-0 lead after 6.5 minutes prompting a Hopkins timeout. The last basket came after a Jamal Bey throw away resulted in a breakaway layup for Oregon State. Also during the run when the Huskies were attempting to play man-to-man defense 6’0 Quade Green got switched onto 7’1 Roman Silva who easily backed him down for an and-1 which was Green’s second foul and forced him to the bench for 10 minutes.

Fortunately, Marcus Tsohonis came in and started to have one of his trademark hot streaks. He hit a pair of 3’s with a Hameir Wright 3-pointer in the middle to give Washington a very quick 9-0 run over the course of 3 possessions. Erik Stevenson managed to pull off a Euro step layup to convert a 1v2 transition opportunity and the Huskies closed it to within 4 points at 21-17 with 10:20 left in the half.

Washington continued to keep things close over the next few minutes and Jamal Bey hit a transition 3-point attempt to bring the game within 3 points at 29-26. That’s when the wheels completely fell off. Someone missed an assignment and Oregon State got off a corner 3 with no one within 10 feet and reliably knocked it down. The Beavers knocked down a couple of tough shots to cancel out Hameir Wright’s 2nd made 3-pointer of the game. But then Wright fouled Oregon State on a corner 3 which marked the 3rd time in the first half the Dawgs fouled a 3-point shooter. He made all 3 free throw attempts.

It looked like Riley Sorn would shortly after answer with a thunderous dunk but Oregon State’s Warith Alatishe showed why he’s one of the best shot blockers in the conference coming from the weakside to reject Sorn at the summit. OSU took the loose ball and pulled up for a transition 3-pointer to extend the lead back out to 15 points. Marcus Tsohonis hit a fade away midrange jumper just before the buzzer to barely close the halftime deficit to 47-35.

Both teams were fairly hot from 3-point range in the 1st half and shot an identical 5/9 from deep. The difference was Oregon State attempted 12 more free throws and converted 10 of them. They also held a 12-0 lead in points off turnovers. Marcus Tsohonis carried Washington in the first half with a game high 12 points while OSU’s Zach Reichle had 10 points and 5 assists.

It was clear that Hop harped on the free throw disparity at halftime as Jamal Bey was aggressive on the first possession and got fouled and made both to close it to 10. Oregon State’s offense wasn’t cooled down by halftime though as they made a pair of jump hooks in the post and canned a 3-pointer to go on a 7-0 run. Stevenson was also able to drive, get fouled, and knock down a pair of free throws but OSU’s Jared Lucas got open in transition and hit an open 3-pointer to push the lead to 70-50 and effectively end the game.

Washington was able to make a mini-run as Oregon State’s ball security slipped a little. The Beavers had just 2 turnovers in the first 30 minutes of the game but coughed it up on consecutive possessions. The second steal resulted in a nice bounce pass from Quade to Cole Bajema who flushed it in transition. Erik Stevenson got in on the bounce pass action after that which gave Nate Roberts a wide open layup to cut the lead to 12. Jared Lucas though as he did all night answered with a contested deep 3 over Quade Green to push it back to 15.

At that point the Huskies would need every possible break and they didn’t get them. The refs missed a goaltending call against OSU after a Tsohonis transition layup hit the glass before getting swatted from behind. Then a Thybulle-esque block from behind on a short jumper by Jamal Bey went directly to OSU’s 7’1 center who immediately laid it in. Finally, it looked like Cole Bajema had a defensive rebound with 1:45 left but lost his balance and lost the ball out of bounds.

Washington caught up on their free throw deficit in the second half with their aggressive offensive mentality and ended up 20/22 from the free throw line versus Oregon State’s 16/19. However, the 3-pointer and in particular the corner 3 was the differentiator. The Beavers finished 11/24 from deep and over half of those were wide open corner looks while Washington went 0/11 from 3-point range in the second half.

Marcus Tsohonis finished with a game high 22 points on 8/13 shooting but had 4 turnovers. Meanwhile all 5 Oregon State starters finished with at least 13 points in a much more balanced effort. Quade Green had one of his worst games as a Husky with just 2 points and 4 turnovers of his own.

The Huskies return to the court on Saturday against Oregon which unfortunately will be televised nationally on CBS.