UW's NCAA hopes trashed

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- It unofficially ended where it unquestionably began.

In the same building where Washington's rise to college basketball prominence got its kick start 37 months ago, the Huskies saw their hopes for a school-record fourth-straight NCAA tournament bid all but vanish Thursday night.

It was here at Gill Coliseum in January 2004 that UW used a 16-point second-half comeback against Oregon State to transform a team that started Pac-10 play 0-5 into one that became a perennial NCAA tournament participant.

But even perpetually optimistic UW coach Lorenzo Romar admitted that run may have come to a halt here after a desultory 73-65 loss to Oregon State.

"With this loss it makes it real tough to get an at-large berth," Romar said.

So barring a hard-to-fathom run through the Pac-10 tournament, there will be no March Madness for the Huskies this year, and the realization that the final nail may have come with such an uninspired performance hit hard.

"We were still playing for a chance [at the NCAA tournament] and to come out like that is a rough thing to deal with," said UW forward Jon Brockman after Huskies fell to 16-11 overall and 6-9 in Pac-10 play. "That was just an embarrassing loss."

It was especially disheartening since the Huskies felt they were evolving into an NCAA tournament-worthy team after close losses last week to Top 10 teams Washington State and Pitt, the latter on the road.

"Before tonight I thought we had been making progress," Romar said. "Tonight we took some steps back. It's difficult in that I just don't know -- for as much as it has been talked about and emphasized -- how we could come out and not be focused at a high level as a group."

Instead, UW let OSU take a 7-0 lead. And while the Huskies reclaimed the lead on a couple of occasions, they were never in sync or in control.

"Effort, intensity, purpose -- all those were things we didn't have tonight," Brockman said.

The Huskies became the first Pac-10 team other than Arizona State to lose a game this season to the Beavers (11-18, 3-13).

Indeed, the Huskies lost 21 turnovers -- their most since December -- leading to 21 Oregon State points; and they were anemic offensively, going without a three-point basket until there was 2:17 left in the game. Washington fell to 1-9 on the road this season.

Unlike the last few games when the Huskies were able to get the ball inside to Spencer Hawes and Brockman most of the time, they struggled against the Beavers. Those two combined for just six shots in the first half, most coming on rebound putbacks.

Hawes said OSU unveiled a new defensive look, bringing down a guard to double-team the post. "We struggled to get ourselves open, and sometimes when we got it we were a little passive with it," he said.

If there was a turning point, it came in the final seconds of the first half after UW had grabbed a 22-19 lead. A UW turnover led to an easy OSU basket. Then, after an OSU miss, Artem Wallace got the rebound and threw an ill-advised outlet pass that was intercepted by Josh Tarver, who sank a three-pointer with one second left to give the Beavers a 24-22 halftime lead.

The Huskies never seemed in it the rest of the way. Not even the presence behind the bench of former Husky turned Portland Trail Blazer Brandon Roy, who showed up late in the first half, provided a spark.

The Huskies briefly revived memories of the famous 2004 comeback when they cut Oregon State's lead to 64-57 with 42.9 seconds left.

But the rally ended, appropriately enough, with a Justin Dentmon turnover, the sixth of the night for the UW sophomore point guard who has struggled all season.

That UW's karma in this building has changed was evident when the Huskies began fouling OSU, the worst free-throw shooting team in the Pac-10 (56.7 percent coming in), with about 2 ½ minutes left, hoping for a few misses. Instead, OSU hit 22 of 28 free throws in the final 2:29 to seal the victory.

Three years after they departed Corvallis on a wave of emotion they rode to unprecedented heights, the Huskies left the same locker room wondering what had just happened.

"That's got to be [the worst loss of the season] with so much on the line," Hawes said. "I don't know when I've felt like this this year."

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