For both the men’s and women’s basketball programs at the University of Washington, this season has been among the more entertaining in recent memory. They’ve been entertaining for different reasons, though, and Monday, March 21 marked the clearest divergence yet.
The women, seeded seventh in the Lexington Regional of the NCAA tournament, started the day off in the afternoon with a stunning 74-65 upset over No. 2 Maryland, a team widely regarded as a Final Four contender. The two keys were the UW’s play during the third quarter — the Huskies outscored the Terrapins by a 20-8 margin — and, as always, the presence of junior guard Kelsey Plum. The nation’s third-leading scorer (at 26.2 points per game) poured in 32 and dished out seven assists, helping the Huskies advance to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2001, where they’ll face third-seeded Kentucky on the Wildcats’ home floor this Friday at 4 p.m. PDT.
A few hours later, the men fell 93-78 to San Diego St. during the second round of the NIT, finishing the season with a record of 19-15. It was a contest that featured all the hallmarks of this particular group of Huskies: Spectacular plays in transition, a bevy of blocked shots, and superb individual offense mixed unpleasantly with disastrous foul trouble, an ineffective defense, and the inability to collect defensive rebounds.
It’s that first set of traits — the highlight-reel plays and the jaw-dropping talent — that have made Lorenzo Romar’s team such a treat to follow. All year long, the Huskies flew around at a breakneck pace; win or lose, they always put on a show. It was truly a unique roster, including one of the greatest scorers in school history (Andrew Andrews, who moved onto third on the school’s all-time list in his final game), the UW’s single-season record-holder for blocked shots (Malik Dime), plus DeJounte Murray and Marquese Chriss, two transformative talents who will be NBA lottery picks whenever they so choose.
The current quandary for UW fans is that they could very well choose to do so as soon as April 10, the deadline for players to declare for this June’s draft. If both leave, the whole tenor of the 2015-16 season changes. Instead of serving as the prelude to a run at the conference title next season with nearly the entire roster intact, it would become a missed opportunity, yet another year in which the Huskies missed the Big Dance despite multiple future pros dotting the lineup.
(I wrote a whole column about this dilemma a few weeks ago, in case you missed it.)
While the men’s program reaches a crossroads that could determine the course of the next few seasons, the women are amidst a joy ride. Not since point guard Giuliana Mendiola and coach June Daugherty led the UW to the Elite Eight in 2001 have the Huskies played so deep into March. And this year’s Huskies are doing it with just as entertaining a roster as the men, starting with their superstar.
In Plum, they have a jitterbugging juggernaut who can hit threes, get to the bucket, and create for others all with equal aplomb (or a-Plum, if you prefer). Her highlight reel should be played somewhere on permanent loop for the “Women’s basketball is boring!” crowd. On the wings are sweet-shooting six-footer Talia Walton and dirty-work-doer Alexus Atchley. At center is Chantel Osahor, a relentless rebounder (15 against Maryland) with a mesmerizing long-range set shot. And joining her in the frontcourt is Katie Collier, a five-star recruit out of high school who battled cancer and has somehow continued to be a key cog.
I don’t have to go much deeper than that, because coach Mike Neighbors rarely does, either. The Huskies usually use just six players. In a Pac-12 tournament win over Stanford, the five starters all went the whole way.
So what’s been the biggest reason for the different paths traveled by the UW men and the UW women? Experience. While the men famously relied on five freshmen and had the fourth-youngest roster in the NCAA, the women start five upperclassmen who have been through battles together before, who made the NCAA tournament last year only to be upset and return this season with vengeance on their minds.
Will Plum & Co. defeat Kentucky on Friday to keep the magic going? Who knows. But Husky fans should enjoy the run while we can, and keep our fingers crossed that the uber-talented members of the men’s team stick around long enough to embark on a lengthy March run of their own in the not-too-distant future.