Saturday, January 19, 2013
How the Huskies keep winning
By Luke Lapinski
Despite winning the Pac-12's regular season title in 2012, Washington missed out on the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four years. And if this season was supposed to be the Huskies' chance to bounce back and make a statement, it certainly didn't start out that way. Terrence Ross and Tony Wroten bolted for the NBA in the summer, then the team dropped three of its first five -- including a loss at home to Albany.
UW has turned it around in conference play though. Through four games, they're undefeated with three road wins and a home victory over a very talented Colorado squad. What's been the difference? As we noted earlier the in the week, Lorenzo Romar has shortened his rotation and is getting more out of his top weapons -- particularly Aziz N'Diaye. Jeff Borzello of CBS Sports points out that improved defensive play has been key as well, noting that the Huskies haven't allowed more than 63 points in a game since their Dec. 15 meeting with Jackson State.
That league as a whole is up this year though, so there will be plenty more tests on the schedule. After very winnable games today against Utah and Wednesday at Oregon State, Romar's group enters a four game stretch where they'll face three ranked opponents (No. 21 Oregon, No. 7 Arizona and No. 24 UCLA) as well as an upstart Arizona State team that sits at 14-3 and hasn't backed down from anyone this year. That span of games should tell us a lot about this year's Washington team.
