Husky men rally but suffer fourth consecutive loss at Stanford
STANFORD, Calif. — The Huskies’ eight-day California road trip began with a six-hour flight delay preceding an upset loss at UCLA, included a buzzer-beating win at California and ended with comeback attempt that came up short against Stanford.
The Washington men’s basketball team cut its 10-point deficit in the second half to one, but couldn’t overcome a career-high 30 points from Spencer Jones and lost 90-80 on Saturday night.
In their final visit as a Pac-12 opponent, the Huskies suffered their fourth straight defeat at Maples Pavilion.
Keion Brooks Jr. paced Washington (11-8, 3-5 Pac-12) with 20 points and 11 rebounds while Wilhelm Breidenbach notched his first career double-double and finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
Moses Wood tallied 18 points while Sahvir Wheeler had 12 and Paul Mulcahy 10 for UW, which was looking for its first road sweep of the Bay Area teams since 2013.
The Huskies trailed 8-7 before a 14-2 Stanford run that included a couple of layups, midrange jumpers and three-pointers gave the Cardinal their largest lead in the first half at 22-9.
Washington spent the next seven minutes crawling back into the game on the strength of makeshift lineups including backup guards Anthony Holland and Nate Calmese.
The Huskies briefly seized momentum and used a 5-0 spurt to pull within 29-25 after a pair of free throws from Wood with 5:13 remaining in the first half.
Washington connected on nine of 10 free throws in the first half while Stanford didn’t attempt a foul shot.
However, the Huskies converted just two of nine three-pointers and the Cardinal canned seven of 15 from long range to take a 39-31 lead into halftime.
Kanaan Carlyle, Michael Jones and Spencer Jones each drained two three-pointers before the break and took advantage of a disconnected and disjointed UW defense that had difficulty deciphering Stanford’s pick-n-roll schemes and often left Cardinal players open on the perimeter.
The Huskies cut their deficit to 64-63 when Brooks converted a short jumper despite being fouled and sank the ensuing free throw at the 7:47 mark.
Jones answered with a three-pointer and Stanford needed five minutes to push its lead back to 82-72 with 2:17 remaining.
Carlyle finished with 16 points while Michael Jones and Brandon Angel each had 13 for Stanford (10-8, 5-3).
The Huskies return home for three straight games at Alaska Airlines Arena starting with a couple of rematches against Colorado on Wednesday and Utah on Saturday.