The Cougars did something Arizona couldn’t earlier this season, and that’s defeat UCLA, but they’ve since lost back-to-back contests versus Washington and Arizona State. But his coach said there is little doubt that he will play against the Sun Devils on Saturday afternoon at Wells Fargo Arena. “And they made us pay for it”.
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“They just did whatever they wanted in the second half, ” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. They made big shots and they are very, very efficient at what they do….
That’s good news, for sure. “But our defense gave up way too many points”.
So, they always need him. That was on Thursday night, after he sprained it in the first half of a blowout loss at Arizona. Holder has averaged 23.5 points in the last four games while shooting 51.8 percent from the floor and 60.8 percent from behind the arc. That showed in the first half today and through the rest of the game.
But Washington’s problems against the Wildcats were multiple. Simon is a 6-foot-5 point guard who is built similarly to Trier and can slash his way to the basket, but doesn’t possess almost the same perimeter shooting skills, while Tollefson is a 6-9 forward that can shoot effectively from deep.
Once the Wildcats turned up the defensive pressure in the final 20 minutes, the Huskies had no shot of keeping up. “The experience, through the loss, it got us better”.
Andrews did all that despite playing on a sore right ankle which required treatments on Friday and Saturday.
“We’re trying to attack every team inside right now”, Miller said.
“We work on it; if you get doubled you know the guy that’s going to be open is going to be that far guy in the corner”, Andrews said of the play. Arizona State tried to make it like a track meet with us and that’s our style of basketball. All day, you could just see there was a lot of focus, and when we came out from the beginning, there was a lot of focus.
It won’t be easy.
Arizona forward Ryan Anderson (12) dunks next to Washington guard Dejounte Murray (5) and forward Marquese Chriss (0) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016, in Tucson, Ariz.
Though the home team started slow, the Cougars fared even worse, suffering a 7:34 scoreless streak.
Romar describes the Sun Devils as “dangerous”.
“To be able to recover from that and come out and be ready to go”, Romar said, “it’s going to be a challenge for us”. The Wildcats took a 44-41 lead into the break. Trier’s absence did not matter as the Wildcats easily handled the Dawgs in the paint and the Huskies’ inability to keep up in points with the Cats left them in the dust. A 3-pointer by Atwood pushed the score to 73-56 with 5:11 left, and the Cougars never crept closer to 10 down the stretch. The Huskies (11-4, 3-0 Pac-12) are now sitting atop the Pac-12 as the lone undefeated team in conference play.
The Huskies, who were shooting 42 percent from the field entering the game, hit 13 of their first 17 shots, ran up double-digit leads, then hung on for an 89-85 win.
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The Sun Devils weren’t slowed by top scorer Sophie Brunner being held to eight points in 20 minutes due to illness.
