Huskies must find their fight again

CORVALLIS, Ore. — It was a day when only three nationally ranked college basketball teams — Washington, North Carolina and Connecticut — were playing.

A day when Washington's jet-city attack could have stolen the show on "SportsCenter," assuming the Huskies were to approach their earlier 40-point win over Oregon State in Seattle.

Instead, they lost by 17 to the Beavers, and were only a missed free throw away at Oregon on Thursday from losing two in the Willamette Valley.

What's happened?

"We didn't play like we wanted to be a Pac-10 champion or be a one or two seed in the NCAA tournament," said Brandon Roy. "It was a lackluster effort."

First of all, these are the dog days of college basketball. The NCAAs are still a month away. The glory that was December and January for the better teams becomes a grim grind the second time around.

And don't think for a moment that the Beavers weren't tired of hearing against whom Washington began its return to big-time basketball last season.

The season is still ahead for Washington, but there are some undeniable concerns that go beyond the fact that Tre Simmons was again horrible from beyond the three-point arc — making just 1 of 7.

And that Jamaal Williams hardly played again, and that Nate Robinson isn't consistently the force he was a season ago.

Clearly, Bobby Jones didn't snap back from the game at Oregon, when he played despite a fever. Thursday's hero, Will Conroy, had four turnovers against the Beavers, twice as many as he had assists.

The Huskies never got into a rhythm.

Trailing by 10 and playing with some emotion in the second half, Robinson went to the floor to get a loose ball, but then Roy got called for an offensive foul. Jones snared a tough rebound, but Robinson threw the ball out of bounds.

In the meantime, the Beavers were in a rhythm, shooting 60 percent from the field.

"The ball went in for us," said Chris Stephens, the guard who made 7 of 11 shots from the floor. "It's no secret. We just shot it and it went in."

Stephens and J.S. Nash, the other guard who hit 5 of 7 from the field, were in rare form. But what about under the basket, where Oregon State's two big men, David Lucas and 6-10 transfer Nick DeWitz, owned things?

They combined for 15 rebounds and 43 points, making 16 of 24 shots, many of them rim-rattling dunks.

Defensively, the Huskies were somewhere between here and Eugene, where on Thursday night they were called for 36 fouls and left to wonder what had happened to their terrorizing defense.

In the first 10 minutes yesterday, they got nine fouls, four in the first 2-1/2 minutes.

"I think a lot of our guys are just out of it," said Roy, who wasn't out of it, scoring 25 points. "They feel picked on, not just the fouls, but the travels and the charges.

"It's frustrating. Teams are coming at us with everything they've got, and we are not allowed to come back at them with the same amount of energy."

Said Conroy: "It's come to the point where we have to establish how we want to play no matter what the officials do. We have to clean up our defense a little, I guess."

UW seemed to withdraw after the early calls. At the same time, OSU went on the offensive.

"You can't back down from a team like that," said Stephens. "You have to be aggressive, too. Someone had to break down, and today it wasn't going to be us."

The Beavers solved Washington's full-court pressure by bringing their big guys, DeWitz and Lucas, up to receive the ball or set a screen so someone else could.

Jay John, the Oregon State coach who was wheeled out of Edmundson Pavilion a month ago with chest pains, said he had never felt better, and not just because of his team's weekend sweep of Washington State on Thursday and UW yesterday.

"What happened in Seattle, for me personally, that was all a blessing in disguise," he said, now devoid of caffeine and alcohol, if not pressure.

Besides the officiating, the Huskies may be slowed by what has been their best attribute, the willingness to step aside and let someone else make a play.

"If we have guys who say, 'Oh well, I'm just not into it today and somebody else will do it,' then we are going to get beat by 20 like we did today," said Roy.

Simmons has to start hitting the three again. Williams needs to play some defense so he can get on the court and give Washington the post-up game it lacked against the Oregon schools. Robinson and Conroy have to value the basketball more.

Mostly, they can't shrink from the officiating. They got to 20 wins going after teams.

"If we fight and bring a better effort," said Roy, "the guys wouldn't even notice the officials."

Blaine Newnham: 206-464-2364 or bnewnham@seattletimes.com