1 of 2 | UW men vs. USC at Big Ten tournament Wednesday. (Courtesy UW Athletics)
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By
Percy Allen
Seattle Times staff reporter
Who says you can’t beat a conference rival three times in a season?
Don’t tell that to the Huskies. Or perhaps, the Cardiac Canines is more appropriate.
In its first-ever Big Ten tournament appearance, the No. 12 seed Washington men’s basketball team overcame a halftime deficit once again against No. 13 seed USC and captured a thrilling 83-79 overtime win in the second round on Wednesday at the United Center in Chicago.
“Adversity hasn’t defined us all year,” UW coach Danny Sprinkle said. “This group’s been through a lot. We’ve got eight players right now. For them to continue to fight and to keep coming back, I wish we wouldn’t dig ourselves such a big deficit each game.
“They don’t quit, man. They keep fighting, and somehow somebody keeps making a big play.”
On a day when USC used 2-3 defenders to slow down star freshman forward Hannes Steinbach, sophomore guard Zoom Diallo led the way for Washington with 22 points, seven rebounds and 11 assists.
“It (came) down to who was going to make the big play toward the end of the game,” said Diallo, who played 43 minutes despite collecting his fourth foul with 12:59 left in regulation. “We’ve been in position like that where a dude’s been in foul trouble or a dude’s been out hurt.
“It was just one of those (days). We need five to fight, and we had five to fight.”
Without seven players, the short-handed Huskies received much-needed contributions from several sources.
Quimari Peterson canned a season-high five three-pointers and had 15 points, along with Wesley Yates III, who connected on 6 of 15 shots before fouling out.
Steinbach chipped in 10 points and 11 rebounds to extend his Big Ten freshman record to 21 double-doubles, while Lathan Sommerville and Courtland Muldrew each added nine points.
“Everybody stepped up,” Sprinkle said.
Sitting next to Diallo and Peterson on the postgame podium, the UW coach playfully asked his players: “Why do you guys keep getting down 15 points in the first half? Can you cut that out?”
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Diallo said: “We’ve got to stop that.”
And Sprinkle replied: “I like that.”
The Huskies can laugh now, but their circumstance appeared dire while trailing 40-33 at halftime. The UW players didn’t panic because they were down at the break against the Trojans in their two previous games.
“We’ve been in this situation before,” Peterson said. “We know what we got to do.”
In their first meeting on Dec. 6, Washington erased an 18-point halftime deficit and staged the second-largest comeback in school history for an 84-76 win at the Galen Center.
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Last week, UW was down 43-40 at the break and outscored USC by 22 points in the second half for a 91-72 victory.
This time, the Huskies fell behind 57-44 with 13:07 left and used a momentum-swinging 16-1 run, which included 13 unanswered points, to take a 60-58 lead after Diallo scored on a putback with 9:01 remaining.
“We could have gotten more stops and took the life away from them,” said USC guard Kam Woods, who scored a game-high 24 points. “That leads to bad shots. We know the way that we’re supposed to play to win in the game and we failed firmly. That’s why they went on that 13-0 run.”
Neither team led by more than four points the rest of the way.
Tied at 71 with 35.8 seconds left, Diallo and Woods missed midrange jumpers that led to overtime.
In the extra period, Diallo put Washington up for good with a layup and Peterson’s three-pointer gave them an 80-76 lead with 59 seconds remaining.
The final minute felt like an eternity for the Huskies.
Woods darted in the lane and drew a foul on Steinbach before sinking a layup. His ensuing free throw pulled the Trojans within 80-79 and seconds later he forced Diallo into a turnover that gave USC one more chance.
Woods drove at Steinbach again and missed an off-balance jumper in the paint. After a couple of Diallo free throws, Muldrew denied Jordan Marsh a clean look and his wild three-point attempt fell short.
Washington (16-16) faces No. 5 seed Wisconsin in the third round at 11:30 a.m. PT Thursday, while USC (18-14) likely ends its season on an eight-game losing streak.
In their lone matchup this season, the Huskies were clobbered 90-73 at home on Feb. 28 on a night when the Badgers sank a season-high 17 three-pointers — their most ever in a road game.
“We struggled a lot,” Sprinkle said. “Credit to them. They made 17 threes in that game. Hopefully shooting in this big ol’ arena for the first time and us having a game under our belt, hopefully they don’t knock down that many threes.
“We’re going to have to do a much better job with our energy and our force. I thought we were on our heels last time, and we didn’t really respond to the adversity that well when they started making those threes, got on those runs. We have to do a better job guarding them and taking care of the basketball on the offensive end.”
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Percy Allen: pallen@seattletimes.com. Percy Allen is a sports reporter for The Seattle Times, where he writes about the University of Washington Huskies men’s and women’s basketball teams and the Seattle Storm.
