Cardinal leaves UW men seeing red

STANFORD, Calif. — Officially, the color here is Cardinal.

But the Huskies always seem to leave Maples Pavilion seeing red.

They've lost Pac-10 titles here in recent years, and games that didn't just seem possible to get away.

Thursday night, however, might have yielded as much frustration as any as UW seemed on its way to a sorely-needed victory for much of the second half before letting Stanford slip away with a 78-77 victory.

"We were our own worst enemy down the stretch," said UW coach Lorenzo Romar, who was unusually short in his postgame remarks. "We just didn't play smart. I'll leave it at that."

UW led 71-66 with less than four minutes left, but went 2 for 8 from the field as well as losing five turnovers in the final five minutes. Two costly UW fouls in the final minute helped Stanford to come back. UW also missed three of four free throws in the final 1:35.

"We just blew it," said UW forward Jon Brockman, who led the Huskies with 23 points and 10 rebounds. "We had it under control, we had a perfect situation, and we just kind of let it go and blew the whole game."

The Huskies now have lost 14 consecutive games here, last winning on Jan. 30, 1993, when Lynn Nance was the coach. This remains the only conference building in which Romar has never won.

Worse, the Huskies (11-5 overall) fell to 1-4 in Pac-10 play and in danger of falling out of the conference race before the end of January. They now play at California on Saturday and Washington State next week before returning home.

"We've got to move on to the next game," Romar said. "We can't dwell on being 1-4."

After trailing much of the first half, UW controlled most of the second half.

Justin Dentmon broke out of a funk that had relegated him to a reserve role to score 15 points, his most since the Portland State game Dec. 16. The breakout game for Dentmon came at the scene of one of his lowest moments — his foul on a three-point attempt that allowed Stanford to tie the game a year ago with the Cardinal then winning in overtime.

"Justin played exceptional basketball tonight," Romar said. "He was just playing within himself and he came with a work ethic and he was focused and he tried to work hard."

True freshman guard Adrian Oliver had his best game in weeks with 10 points.

And Brockman had his eighth double-double of the season.

All of it seemed ready to overcome an off night by Spencer Hawes, who had three shots blocked by Robin Lopez — one-half of Stanford's twin 7-foot tandem along with Brook Lopez — and scored just six points, making just 3 of 12 shots from the field.

"I didn't make the right adjustments," Hawes said. "I should have thrown in a counter here or a fake there and I didn't do that tonight."

After losing the lead on two free throws by Anthony Goods with 2:30 left, the Huskies grabbed it back on a three-point play by Dentmon at 74-72 with 1:15 left.

On the next possession, UW appeared to have stopped the Cardinal. But after Dentmon saved a rebound from going out of bounds and got it into the hands of Hawes, Lawrence Hill stole the ball from Hawes, laid it in and was fouled with 41 seconds left. His free throw put the Cardinal ahead 75-74.

UW's Quincy Pondexter made just one of two free throws with 29.6 seconds left to tie it at 75.

Stanford got the lead right back when Goods hit two free throws with 27 seconds left after being fouled in backcourt by UW's Ryan Appleby.

UW then turned the ball over when Phil Nelson tried to force a pass inside to Brockman with 16 seconds left.

Taj Finger hit a free throw with 8.5 seconds left to make it 78-75. Nelson missed a harried three-pointer on the other end that Brockman tipped in with 0.2 seconds left for the final score.

"They made more plays than we did down the stretch and there it went," Hawes said.

Stanford also outshot the Huskies for the game, making 30 of 55 shots to UW's 33 of 69 with the 7-foot Lopezes combining for 29 points and 14-for-22 shooting. It was just the second game they have started together at Stanford.

"The Lopez twins make an impact on the game, there is no doubt about it," Romar said.

Goods led Stanford with 19 points, scoring 13 in the first nine minutes to give the Cardinal an early lead before Brockman led UW's second-half comeback.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Read his blogs on Washington football and basketball at www.seattletimes.com/huskies.