Jon Brockman: UW's best rebounder of all time?

About an hour or so before the first game Jon Brockman played in Oregon's Mac Court for Washington in 2006, he took a trek to the top section of the famed arena to see what the view was like.

"It's a lot higher than it looks," Brockman said later.

Tonight, on his last collegiate visit there, Brockman figures to finally make another ascension — this one to the top of Washington's career rebounding list.

Brockman enters the game with 1,044 rebounds, needing seven to tie and eight to break the record of Doug Smart, who played from 1957 to 1959.

Since Brockman averages 10.9 rebounds, a normal outing should put him in the record books tonight. Still, he says it's not something he's thinking much about.

"I think it will be one of those things that's pretty cool, that gets a little sweeter as time goes on and I've left here," he said. "I'm sure that's when it will kind of hit me that it really happened."

As the leader of the Huskies, Brockman's focus this week has been on helping his team rebound collectively from last Saturday's crushing triple-overtime loss to California.

Brockman said the team spent Sunday thinking about the loss, though some players got right back to work. Isaiah Thomas spent most of the day at the gym. UW coach Lorenzo Romar was worried but noticed no real drop in enthusiasm from his team in practice this week. He said he thought players initially wondered how coaches would react. Romar responded with a business-as-usual practice, saying, "There's no reason to panic. We've been doing a pretty good job."

In fact, Washington (11-4 overall, 2-1 Pac-10) is one of just four Pac-10 teams with a winning conference record after two weeks of play.

But Brockman acknowledges that the home loss means UW "now has to make up some ground on the road." That puts particular importance on the two games this week — Washington also plays at Oregon State on Saturday — which loom as the two most winnable road games remaining for the Huskies.

Tonight's opponent, Oregon (6-10, 0-4) is in rebuilding mode with a starting lineup typically featuring two true freshmen, a sophomore and two juniors.

Yet Romar, surely remembering that he's just 2-4 in Eugene as UW's coach, is predictably wary, saying he thinks Oregon "is a dangerous 0-4 team."

NOTES

• Brockman went 5 for 17 on free throws last weekend, and Romar said this week that he thinks one reason could be fatigue. Brockman doesn't agree. "I don't think that's a big part of it," he said. "I just need to concentrate more when I'm up there and go up confident and hit them." He's now shooting 53.8 percent on free throws. UW is shooting 64.6 percent as a team.

• Romar said guard Elston Turner is "a possibility" to play this weekend, but still questionable, due to a high ankle sprain suffered against Morgan State on Dec. 30.

• Washington has swept the Oregon trip just once in Romar's six years, in 2006 when Brandon Roy was a senior.

• Oregon starting point guard Tajuan Porter was benched for the second half of the Ducks' 76-58 loss at Arizona State Saturday. But Oregon coach Ernie Kent said this week that he expects to go with his regular starting lineup for tonight's game, including Porter.

• Smart collected his total of 1,051 rebounds in just three seasons, since freshmen were not eligible in that era. So his school record of 13.5 rebounds per game will stand.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com