I’ve been watching a lot of old Washington basketball games the past couple weeks, late at night when I can’t sleep. On the Pac-12 Network, on the UW channel, they’ll be showing some random game from late in Bob Bender’s tenure, or the 2004 team’s win over No. 1 Stanford, or the night Klay Thompson scored 43 points against the Huskies in the Pac-12 tournament, and I always end up tuning in for at least a while. I was eleven during the 2003-04 season that really kickstarted this whole Lorenzo Romar era, so I remember every team since then — the best dozen years in program history by just about any measure, certainly the stretch in which the UW has sent the most guys to the NBA — pretty darn well. I covered the program for three years.
And it is with complete confidence that I say the Huskies have never had a player like Marquese Chriss. Robert Upshaw was probably the closest thing, but he’s a couple inches taller than Chriss, didn’t have the offensive versatility, and seemed like a lunatic. Otherwise it’s maybe Bobby Jones, except not really? Quincy Pondexter, except a whole lot taller and bouncier? Darnell Gant, except don’t make me laugh? I don’t mean Chriss is better than Pondexter, but certainly more physically gifted. Chriss is an 18-year-old walking pogo stick who can make 3s, dunk on people’s heads, and blocks shots like a volleyball player. He is unique and amazing.
Nor have the Huskies ever had a player like DeJounte Murray. When the subject is a 6-foot-5 guard from Seattle who flirts with triple-doubles while getting to the basket at ease despite a sometimes-shaky jumper, the obvious comparisons are Tony Wroten and a young Brandon Roy. Murray’s style of play is much closer to Wroten’s, but his on-floor temperament seems nearer to Roy’s. I was about to use “surprising” to describe Murray’s calmness on the court, but then I remembered he has a teenage mutant ninja turtle tattooed on his right bicep. He seems like a chill dude who happens to excel at the ancient art of getting buckets. Murray slithers to the hoop. He’s so quick and so long that he hasn’t met a defender yet he can’t break down one-on-one, and he at times shows a knack for finishing at the rim that borders on the extraordinary. He does the things with the ball that ever decent basketball player imagines they themselves can do, the things their minds tell them would be correct or just awesome but which their bodies are incapable of executing. Murray is more than capable. He is so fun to watch.
And yet after the UW’s 78-75 loss to California at home Thursday night, it’s looking more likely than not that the Huskies will miss the NCAA tournament for the fifth year running. I’m certainly not an expert in such matters, but from perusing various mock drafts and scouting stories and possessing two working eyes, it also seems more likely than not that at least one of either Murray or Chriss, and more likely both, will declare for the NBA draft after this season and go on to become first-round picks. The odds are at least 50-50 that perhaps the two most jaw-dropping players to pass through the UW program this century will come and go without ever playing in a game that really mattered all that much.
How does such a thing happen? The obvious depository of blame is Romar, for the same litany of reasons trotted out every time the Huskies struggle and the flame beneath his seat starts to flicker. The infrequency of anything resembling an offensive system or plan, the apparent absence of inbound plays, the inability to develop talent — I disagree with the last point, but those are the common qualms with the 14th-year coach. Such a line of thinking is simplistic, though. Before the year, nobody really expected the Huskies to do much at all with the fourth-youngest roster in the country and four freshmen in the starting lineup. Romar deserves credit for compiling such a talented recruiting class in the first place. He acknowledged the program’s recent stagnancy by hiring Will Conroy, focusing more heavily on recruiting locally, and returning to a more frenetic style of play. All those changes were good. I don’t think anyone can knock Romar for hauling in what is likely the best recruiting class in school history, with two potentially transformational talents and a whole host of other contributors.
The plan was never really for the UW to make the tournament in 2016. It was for the young players to develop and grow, setting the stage for a potential run next season with everyone a year older and five-star recruit Markelle Fultz in the fold. The problem is that Murray and Chriss have been better than we thought, yet still not quite good enough to carry the team into the top third of the Pac-12. Their physical gifts and potential are so obvious. Color commentator Casey Jacobson compared the duo to Amare Stoudemire and Jamal Crawford during the Cal game, and he wasn’t far off. They do things very few people can do. The prospect of Fultz, Murray, and Chriss running the floor together is dreamy, but it may remain just that — a fantasy.
It’s not a sure thing. The Dawgs could still go dancing. They’re 15-11 with four games to go as of this writing; an 18-12 regular season record plus a trip to the semifinals at the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas might do the trick. They could always take things into their own hands and win the conference tourney. They certainly have the talent to do so.
Even if they miss the tournament, Murray and Chriss both might decide to come back to school. The Huskies are obviously close-knit, and with Fultz dropping in from Maryland seemingly every week to watch a game, the prospect of playing with him has to be in the Huskies’ minds. Maybe they see the potential to do something special next season, and maybe they choose that over the chance to immediately become instant millionaires.
If they go to the NBA, though, I can’t blame them in the slightest. Nor can I blame their coach, or anybody else. Yet all the same, what two months ago looked like a true UW revival now increasingly resembles something else. Sometimes your timeline gets shattered. Sometimes things just don’t work out.