UW falls in triple OT when it blows chance after chance

So many times it appeared Washington had won this game.

The Huskies had an eight-point lead with three minutes to go in regulation. A three-point lead midway through the first overtime. A five-point lead in the final 30 seconds of the second overtime.

And a four-point lead in the last two minutes of the third-and-final overtime, after California's quicksilver point guard Jerome Randle had fouled out.

Washington had this game won so many times. The 9,946 fans threw so many premature celebrations you could almost feel the hunger in their hearts.

This would have been the Huskies' third straight conference win. Their 10th win in a row overall. By Monday morning they would have been ranked in the Top 25.

But in the crunch of the afternoon, when they needed to make just a couple of more free throws, when they had to get one final defensive stop, when they had to play with intelligence and poise, when they had the chance to separate themselves from the teams of the past two seasons, they couldn't.

The Huskies should have won this game, but they didn't. California did, 88-85 in a triple-overtime game that could haunt Washington on Selection Sunday. Now the Huskies (11-4) play six of their next eight games on the road.

In the swelter of a late Saturday afternoon in January, the road to March got that much more treacherous.

Yes, this is how it's going to be, every afternoon and every night, into March. This is how difficult, how balanced, how relentlessly dramatic the Pac-10 Conference is this season.

This is how hard it is to win a game, almost any game, in this conference in 2009. The Pac-10 is all gut checks, no gimmes.

These games are as uncomfortable as a punch in the mouth. They are alley fights, root canals.

The teams with the most floor burns win conference games. Teams that play aggressively for all 40 minutes, or in the case of Saturday's game, 55 minutes, will survive.

And in this can't-catch-your-breath classic, Washington stopped playing aggressively. Ahead by nine with fewer than four minutes to play in regulation, the Huskies quit running. They stopped attacking the basket. They got tentative, tight.

Free throws that had been falling rattled off the back rim. Justin Holiday missed one of two. Isaiah Thomas split a pair and Jon Brockman missed his last two in regulation and missed a pair that would have given Washington a lead in the last minute of the last overtime.

"We did a lot of things to get a victory in this game," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. "But we did too many things to let it slip away."

Tournament teams win these games. Tournament teams keep playing. They stretch their leads in the final minutes. They make their free throws the way California did.

This game could have been a springboard for the Huskies. For most of this frantic game, there was so much to celebrate.

Senior guard Justin Dentmon, who has endured two difficult seasons under the microscope at Washington, was playing another redemptive game. He had 15 points in the overtimes.

It seemed the ball always was in his hands. When the clock was down, he was isolated at the top of the circle. His and-one spin with 33 seconds left in the second overtime put Washington ahead 75-70.

But he made just two of four free throws in the last 20 seconds of that overtime. Make one more and Washington celebrates.

And for much of the game Thomas was playing like the conference freshman of the year. He had 22 points, dished five assists.

But with 1.3 seconds left in the second overtime and Washington leading by three, he made a freshman mistake, contesting D.J. Seeley at the rim, fouling him and bringing Cal back again from the dead.

It brought back nightmares of Mike Jensen's foul at the end of the Huskies' Sweet 16 loss to Connecticut in 2006.

Leave Seeley alone and Washington celebrates. But Seeley made the basket, sank the free throw and kept the game alive.

There is no doubt this team is better than its two predecessors. It plays defense almost as hard as some of Romar's earlier teams. It hits the floor like linebackers. It contests almost every pass. It overplays every passing lane.

But in the final four minutes of regulation and through three overtimes, Cal was tougher than Washington. The Bears (15-2) were Baltimore Ravens tough, which is exactly what you have to be in the Pac-10.

In the crunch of the game, the Huskies wobbled, a wobble that will be remembered in March.