Feb. 7, 2013
By Gregg Bell LOS ANGELES - So many missed shots. So many missed opportunities. C.J. Wilcox scored at the rim on a daring drive with 11 seconds remaining to tie Thursday night's game at UCLA. But then Larry Drew II stepped back at the left corner of the free-throw line and swished the game-winning shot over Aziz N'Diaye to send the Huskies to a bitter, 59-57 loss at Pauley Pavilion. N'Diaye was again dominant inside for Washington (13-10, 5-5 Pac-12) with 11 points and a career-high 18 rebounds for his league-best 10th double-double this season. C.J. Wilcox slogged like the rest of his team through cold shooting to score 15 points and Abdul Gaddy had 13 points and a season-high eight assists. UW will be smarting from now until Sunday night's game at USC over its 19 turnovers and seven missed shots at the rim. That cost them an imminently winnable game that UCLA played poorly in about as many spurts as the Huskies did. Shabazz Muhammad, the leading scorer for UCLA (17-6, 7-3) coming in at 18.4 points per game, scored 22 points after missing practice time this week because of the flu. If ever there was a game to be seized, this was it. The first half was as ugly and forgettable a half as the Huskies have been a part of in a while. John Wooden - whose life is displayed throughout the concourse in a museum-like setting in this renovated icon -- would have turned away for much a 20-minute stretch in which the teams combined for 21 turnovers and missed 39 of 61 shots. Washington missed five shots at the rim, leading scorer C.J. Wilcox was 3 for 10, Scott Suggs spent much of the half on the bench with three fouls, Andrew Andrews was next to him with two - yet the Huskies were tied at 28 at the break. And that was only because of a charge call on Wilcox and then a defensive breakdown in which UW allowed UCLA to inbound 94 feet from the basket, advance 70-plus feet and have Norman Powell swish a 3-pointer in the final 4 seconds of the half. Check back here on GoHuskies.com for more updates soon. |
