It was in this same building, against this same opponent, that Mike Hopkins had his first signature moment in Seattle as Washington’s men’s basketball coach.
The date was Feb. 3, 2018, Hopkin’s inaugural season, and Dominic Green hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Huskies a 78-75 win over No. 9 Arizona at Alaska Airlines Arena. Delirium ensued from the sellout crowd, which had already reached an emotional peak with a rapturous welcome for Hopkins’ predecessor, Lorenzo Romar, returning as an Arizona assistant. As our Percy Allen wrote in his game story, “Anything seems possible for Washington.”
Five years later nearly to the day, that sentiment no longer prevails. It hasn’t for quite some time. Washington fell 95-72 on Saturday to Arizona — ranked No. 6 in this year’s incarnation.
The Huskies teased the sellout crowd (a loud subsection of whom rooted loudly for the Wildcats) with the notion that an elusive breakthrough win might be forthcoming. But after a half of fierce contention, Washington was blown out after intermission.
It’s another in a long line of disappointments and letdowns for the Huskies. After soaring in Hopkins’ first two seasons, both resulting in Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors, they have settled into a four-year rut of mediocrity — or worse.
This was their 15th straight defeat against a ranked opponent, and the toll of that appears to be wearing on Hopkins. He pointed out that the strength of the Pac-12 this year keeps giving them new opportunities for the kind of win that would be a Hail Mary for their dwindling NCAA tournament hopes. Two such games are coming up next week at UCLA and USC.
But it’s clear that the Huskies — and Hopkins — are running out of time to, using the phrase that cropped up more than once in the postgame post-mortem, “get over the hump.” With two years left on his contract after this season, questions about Hopkins’ job security, already bubbling over, will only intensify without a dramatic turnaround.
Hopkins became emotional when asked how frustrating it was to keep getting turned back against ranked opponents. The recent home games against Arizona have been particularly galling — losses by margins of 80-53, 92-68 and now 95-72 in the past three.
“I can’t tell you … I’m disappointed for our fans,” Hopkins said. “I’m disappointed for our kids, because they work so hard, but I’m disappointed for our fans.”
Hopkins was asked how he was holding up personally. A reporter noted that he looked tired, which caused him to joke with a thin smile that such a characterization would make his wife mad.
“I’m holding up great,” he countered. “I mean, I love coaching these guys. I love our team. We just need to do a better job of getting them over the hump. You know, it’s tough to win college basketball games. These guys have been resilient for the most part this year. And we’ve just got to keep going. That’s what you’ve got to do in life. Just got to keep keying on, how do we get better? Get back to the next game, move forward, stay together.”
For a while, it looked like this might be the afternoon that galvanized a season-ending surge for the Huskies. Coming off an overtime win over Arizona State on Thursday that will look good on their resume, alongside an earlier one over St. Mary’s, Washington led by as much as nine in the first half. But the Huskies seemed helpless to stop separate runs of 14-0 and 19-1 by Arizona in the second half.
“We went man-to-man, couldn’t stop them. Went zone, couldn’t stop them,’’ Hopkins said ruefully, adding that once they fell behind, he sensed his players trying for “an eight-point play” to get them back in it.
“That can also make a team stagnant,” he said. “Sometimes we have those issues. But we’ve responded well, and we’re going to respond well again.”
Keion Brooks Jr. led the Huskies with 25 points and Keyon Menifield added 21. To Menifield, the Huskies’ second-half decline was not a mystery.
“I think we didn’t come out with as much fight,’’ he said. “We didn’t play as hard of defense as we did in the first half. We didn’t rebound. We didn’t play as much together as we did in the first half.”
To Brooks, it was even more basic than that.
“They just kicked our ass. Their ain’t nothing else. It’s as simple as that.”
So now the Huskies move on to the next ranked opponent, UCLA, and the next chance to assert themselves into some semblance of relevancy.
“We’ve got another couple of great opportunities out west,’’ Hopkins said. “It’s just that when you’re at home, you want to give your fans something great. And we missed out on an opportunity tonight.”
The memories of when such triumphs were a regular thing for the Husky men are getting dimmer and dimmer.