The Washington Huskies take on Arizona Saturday night in Seattle. This will be a big game for both teams. The Huskies have won three games in a row and are in 3rd place in the Pac 12 men’s basketball standing with a league record of 6-3 and an overall record of 16-6. They have been outstanding at home 12-2 however won a big game early on the road beating Kansas.
Arizona is again in a spot they are used to being in. They are in first place with a league record of 9-1 and an overall record of 19-4. They are 12-0 at home and have one loss on the road. Former Husky coach Lorenzo Romar who was fired after last season when they one only nine games returns as an assistant with Arizona. I am sure the Husky faithful fans will give him applause. He had a pretty good coaching record with the Huskies up until the last five years and produced several players who went onto the NBA. It has been a while since the Huskies have made the NCAA tournament so I am sure it was his downfall well as having a poor team that finished last in 2017.
The Huskies hired former assistant coach Mike Hopkins from Syracuse. He has installed Syracuse 2-3 zone defense that is now making the Huskies a team to reckon with. I am sure that defense will get even better for the Huskies as time goes by. The Huskies were picked to finish tenth in the Pac 12. So being 3rd in standings Hopkins should be considered to be Pac 12 coach of the year especially if the Huskies do make it into the tournament. Even if they lose to Arizona which is a good possibility all they need to do is go around five hundred the rest of the way. They could end up winning twenty-one games which has to be the top turnaround in college basketball this season. It is an amazing story because had a really good recruiting class coming in before Romar was fired and they decided to go elsewhere. So the Huskies roster is primarily made up of players who decided to stay. They do have four freshmen on the team including guard Jaylen Nowell. Also they will lose only two seniors Dan Kingma who originally was a walkon and Greg Bowman. At this point the Huskies have four recruits with one signed and three committed. So next season the Huskies should be even a more difficult team to play.
This coming week the Huskies will be on the road playing the Oregon Ducks and then the Oregon State Beavers. They should at least split the two games. On Thursday they beat 25th ranked Arizona State 68-64. This shows so far that the Huskies have no problem playing top ranked teams. The only one they had problems with was local in-state rival Gonzaga losing 97-70. The years ahead it would be nice to see some close and exciting games between these two teams.
The last six games in the Pac 12 schedule after playing in Oregon four of them will be at home closing off against Ducks and Beavers in Seattle. It will be exciting not only seeing Saturday night’s game against Arizona but the remaining eight games. Go Huskies!!
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