Skip navigation

Washington’s Pac-10 title hopes derailed

No. 10 Huskies upset by Cardinal; finish 2nd after Wildcats’ victory

Image: Washington loss
Washington guard Tre Simmons, left, and guard Will Conroy sit on the bench late a loss. Washington's 77-67 defeat to Stanford on Saturday kept the Huskies from earning a share of the Pac-10 title.
Paul Sakuma / AP
Special feature
Image: Cole Aldrich dunks
College hoops season preview
Men's top 25 rankings, analysis, predictions and more. Cole Aldrich and Kansas are No. 1, but where does the rest of the field fall?

NBCSports.com

Slideshow
Notre Dame v UCLA
  Three cheers for Madness
Take a look at cheerleaders in action during the NCAA tournament and more.

more photos

updated 9:31 p.m. ET March 5, 2005

STANFORD, Calif. - In a span of two hours, Nate Robinson went from his hyper, high-energy self to slumped over and stone-faced.

Washington missed one huge opportunity, and he partially blamed himself.

Matt Haryasz had a career-high 24 points and 10 rebounds, and an inspired Stanford team shocked No. 10 Washington 77-67 on Saturday, dashing the Huskies’ hopes of at least a share of their first Pac-10 title in two decades.

Story continues below ↓
advertisement | your ad here

“We blew our chance. That was it,” said Robinson, frustrated with his 4-for-16, 11-point performance. “I’m just speechless right now. I don’t know what to say. We couldn’t get it done.”

Washington had to wait until the conclusion of first-place Arizona’s game at Arizona State, won 70-68 by the No. 11 Wildcats to give them the outright title. The Huskies (24-5, 14-4 Pac-10) haven’t won a league title since tying with Southern California in 1985.

Strangely enough, it was Washington that kept Stanford from an undefeated regular-season last year by ending the Cardinal’s 26-game winning streak with a 77-66 victory in Seattle during the final Pac-10 weekend — almost an identical score from Saturday’s game.

“That hurt,” Haryasz recalled of last season’s meeting.

Brandon Roy had 16 points and eight rebounds, but the cold-shooting Huskies never found any rhythm only two days after making a school-record 16 3-pointers in a 106-73 victory at California.

Washington has lost 12 straight games at Maples Pavilion, where a sellout crowd of 7,233 made things hard for the Huskies all day. Hundreds of students dressed in red ran onto the floor to celebrate when the final buzzer sounded.

The Huskies had won four straight and eight of nine, and their frustration was evident when Roy hammered Fred Washington under the basket with 26.6 seconds left for an intentional foul.

“If you’re standing around like we were, it’s hard to get ball movement,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. “That was maybe the biggest culprit.”


Sponsored links