UW men routed by No. 4 Arizona to end series as conference foes

TUCSON, Ariz. – The impending finality of the Washington men’s basketball team’s last days in the Pac-12 never felt more intense and visceral than it did at the start of Saturday’s game against No. 4 Arizona.

Perhaps the sold-out McKale Center crowd of 14,688 infused extra electricity into a rivalry that’s been recently dominated by the Wildcats for about a decade.

In their heyday, the Huskies came here with teams led by Brandon Roy or Isaiah Thomas and waged epic battles against a legion of All-American Wildcats whose retired jerseys hang in the rafters.

Back then, Washington routinely throttled Arizona, and the teams battled for supremacy in the Pac-12.

The Huskies, however, haven’t been elite in a long time, and Saturday’s 91-75 defeat – UW’s eighth straight loss to Arizona – was one last parting shot from the Wildcats before they head to the Big 12 next season.

After posting a 13-8 record against Arizona between 2004-12, Big Ten-bound Washington is 3-17 against UA in the past 20 meetings of a series that ends as conference foes.

Two days earlier, the Wildcats lost 77-74 to WSU, which didn’t bode well for Washington considering Arizona has not lost back-to-back games since coach Tommy Lloyd took over in 2021.

The Wildcats (21-6, 15-4 in Pac-12) are 17-0 following a loss.

At the start, Arizona connected on 11 of 12 field goals, including its first seven shots. The Wildcats went up 27-11 after Caleb Love drained a 3-pointer that sent the crowd into a frenzy.

At that point, ESPN’s win probability gave the Wildcats a 98.8% chance of winning, and the Huskies went into halftime down 52-35.

“After a loss, we knew they were going to come out and play with that type of intensity and fire that got the crowd involved and we didn’t handle it well,” UW coach Mike Hopkins said. “We didn’t have that intensity on the defensive end that we needed to and that was the difference in the game. They set the tone.”

Washington fell behind 61-38 early in the second half before seizing momentum with a 22-9 run. Moses Wood sank a 3-pointer that pulled UW to within 69-60 with 9:21 left.

“We’re thinking just get it to six,” UW backup guard Nate Calmese said. “If we get it to six, then keep chopping it down slowly. Our main plain was to win every 4 minutes and cut the game into segments.

“If we could do that, then we could win the game.”

The Huskies, however, didn’t get any closer.

Arizona continued to pummel Washington with the Pac-12’s highest-scoring attack, featuring Love (28 points, seven rebound and five assists), Pelle Larsson (17 points, seven rebounds and five assists), Keshad Johnson (16 points and three blocks) and Oumar Ballo (14 points and 14 rebounds).

Despite a 37-7 advantage in bench points, the Huskies couldn’t keep pace.

Backup guard Koren Johnson led UW with 17 points, six rebounds and five assists while Keion Brooks Jr. and Calmese each had 15 points.

Wood added 10 points for Washington, which fell to 15-13 and 7-10 in the Pac-12.

Essentially, the Huskies’ pursuit for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid came to a halt following last week’s 82-80 loss to California, and this week’s 1-1 road trip, which included an 84-82 overtime win at Arizona State, didn’t change their forecast.

Nothing short of winning the Pac-12 Tournament, which comes with an automatic berth to the Big Dance, will send UW to the NCAA Tournament and snap its five-year drought.

The Huskies have just three regular-season games left, next week’s home contests against UCLA and USC followed by a road contest against No. 21 Washington State.

“The thought is to just keep going and don’t give up,” Calmese said. “Go hard every day and try to win the last few games that we have left for a great seed in the Pac-12 Tournament.”