The Washington Huskies Get Lost In The Trees, Losing 87 to 69

The Washington Huskies came into Maples Pavilion on a 3 game win streak and coming off their best offensive performance of the season with the 20+ point win over California Thursday. Washington also previously defeated Stanford at home with a 67-64 victory just 3 weeks ago so confidence was sky high coming into today’s game. Unfortunately that confidence was quickly shattered early on and may have lost a key player to injury.

The Stanford Cardinal, using hot shooting and dominating on the boards, defeat the Huskies 87 to 69 to drop Washington to 12-9 overall and 7-4 in the conference. Washington drops to 6^th place in the Pac 12 after having a chance to tie for 2nd with UCLA and Oregon if the Huskies were able to pull out a victory.

The Huskies are also now 0-3 playing on Sunday’s after a Thursday victory. The extra day of rest has not been kind to Washington so far and the average defeat has been by 20 points per game (at Colorado, at Oregon and at Stanford).

The Huskies came out flat from the opening tip and Stanford could not miss, especially from deep. Stanford got off to a 15 to 2 lead until PJ Fuller hit a 3 from the corner off a nice feed from Terrell Brown. Fuller then hit the exact same shot just moments later and Terrell Brown stole the ball immediately after for a layup to cut it to 15-12.

It seemed like everything was starting to click for Washington until Daejon Davis took a hard screen from Lukas Kisunas and looked to have injured his shoulder. Davis was on the floor for a few minutes and then walked straight to the locker room with Will Conroy along his side. This would be a brutal homecoming for Daejon after spending 4 years at Stanford and coming off his best game as a Husky against Cal.

With Daejon Davis in the locker room, it seemed like the Huskies were actually playing with a little boost of energy and were able to cut it to a 17 to 16 Stanford lead after an acrobatic bank shot from Terrell Brown and a dunk from Nate Roberts. This would be the closest Washington would get the rest of the game.

Stanford would go on a 15-5 run of their own by hitting three 3’s and getting easy buckets by the hoop. The 3 point shot would be a big story of the first half as Stanford hit 8/13 from 3 (61.5%). A majority of the shots were pretty wide open as Stanford was able to move the ball around the court with ease to find an open shooter. Once they got rolling, they also saw some luck as Jaden Delaire hit a bank shot three pointer right before the half when it seemed like the Huskies were going to make a small run.

Stanford would go into the halftime break with a 46 to 33 lead and the Cardinal shot 51.6% from the field and 12 for 23 (61.5%) from 3, which is not how you want to draw it up if you are the Huskies.

Huskies Get Dominated On The Glass In The 2nd half And Stanford Pulls Away

PJ Fuller got the start in the 2^nd half with Daejon Davis still in the locker room. Emmitt Matthews got his first bucket of the game off of an offensive rebound but Stanford would return the favor on the other end with multiple offensive boards in the next few possessions. This would be a sign of things to come for the rest of the way.

The outside shots for Stanford stopped falling but the story of the 2^nd half was offensive rebounding for the Cardinal. A lot of that had to do with Stanford making a lot of shots in the 1^st half but when the shots stopped falling, it seemed like Stanford got almost every offensive rebound. Stanford only shot 3/14 from 3 in the 2^nd half but dominated the boards off those misses. Even worse, they would clean up the miss and score with a dunk or a layup. Stanford scored 40 points in the paint and had 16 second chance points, mostly in the 2nd half.

Stanford came into the game as the #1 offensive rebounding team in the Pac 12 so not a big surprise Washington would struggle but the Huskies were only down 18-20 in total rebounds in the 1^st half. Stanford would end up out rebounding UW in the 2^nd half 28 to 12 and collect 12 offensive boards.

Terrell Brown did Terrell Brown things, scoring 30 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 steals and 1 block but was unable to get help from anyone else. PJ Fuller started off hot with two quick threes but went cold the rest of the way. Fuller did finish with 11 points and Nate Roberts finished with 7 points and 7 rebounds in 23 minutes but on 3/8 shooting.

The biggest disappointment, aside from losing Daejon Davis to an injury, was not getting much production from Jamal Bey, Daejon Davis early on (when he was in) and Emmitt Matthews. Against California, Jamal Bey, Daejon Davis and Emmitt Matthews combined for 50 points. Today, they combine for 5 points total but the energy just seemed off for most of the game.

Daejon Davis’s injury was a big part and Bey spent most of the 1st half on the bench after picking up two quick fouls but couldn’t get on track in the 2^nd half by shooting 1/8 in the game with multiple open looks. Emmitt Matthews, who has been playing well in conference play, also seemed out of it early on but was hobbling by the end of the 1st half with a leg injury himself.

Stanford was able to pull away for an 87 to 69 victory and shot 50.8% from the field and 11-27 from 3 but they did damage all over the box score including Rebounds (48), Assists (20) and blocks (8). Dominic Penn and Noah Neubauer both hit a three late in the game to get their first points of the season.

Stanford has the 4^th tallest team in the country but came in as the 303^rd ranked team in blocks per game and last in the Pac 12. Stanford would win the block category today with 8 blocks total when they only average 1.9 per game. Stanford used their length to their advantage today. Stanford turned it over 20 times but half of their turnovers were dead ball Turnovers which kept UW out of transition. When Washington did get a steal, Stanford did a fairly good job keeping UW out of transition and would foul intentionally a couple of times to save a Washington Transition basket.

Stanford was led by 18 from Jaden Delaire, 17 from Harrison Ingram and 17 from James Keefe, who only averages 4.7 ppg.

Washington will have to have a short memory and get ready for the Arizona schools coming into town this week. Arizona State is coming off a big victory over #3 UCLA and #7 Arizona just swept the LA schools. Next game is Thursday at 8 pm versus the Arizona State Sun Devils.