To advance past the first round in next week’s Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament, the Huskies will need to do something they did last year — beat a team three times in a season.
Washington and Colorado finished the regular season with identical 16-15 records and tied for eighth in the Pac-12 standings at 8-12.
The Huskies beat the Buffaloes twice this season, which gives UW the No. 8 seed and CU the No. 9 seed when the teams meet in a Pac-12 tournament opener at noon Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The winner advances to face No. 1 seed UCLA in a Thursday quarterfinal matchup.
Washington enters the postseason having lost six of its past nine games, including a 93-84 defeat against Washington State in its last outing.
Colorado knocked off Utah 69-60 on Saturday to stop a three-game losing streak.
“It’s one game at a time,” UW coach Mike Hopkins said when asked about postseason play following the loss in the regular-season finale. “We always say DMGB – doesn’t matter get better. But you can tell they were down. You could sit and feel sorry for yourself or you can sit there and get excited to get better and have an opportunity to go out there and play in Vegas. That’s the greatest thing about this time of the year.”
Last year, then-No. 6 seed Washington crushed Utah 82-70 in its Pac-12 opener for its third consecutive win against the Utes before falling 65-61 to USC in the next round.
In its previous matchups against Colorado this season, Washington claimed a 73-63 home victory on Dec. 4 and escaped Coors Events Center with a 75-72 win on Jan. 19.
On Thursday, Hopkins relied on a six-player rotation and the Huskies may be short-handed once again without senior guards Noah Williams (knee) and PJ Fuller II (illness), neither of whom has played in weeks.
UW is 21-21 at the Pac-12 tournament and 1-0 against Colorado. In their only postseason meeting, then-No. 1 seed Washington beat No. 5 Colorado 66-61 in the 2019 semifinals.
The Buffaloes are the only team in Pac-12 history to win four conference tournament games before claiming the championship. Colorado did it in 2012 as the No. 6 seed.
The No. 8 seed has never advanced past the Pac-12 tournament semifinals.
Just don’t tell that to the eternally optimistic Hopkins, who has a 3-5 record at the Pac-12 tournament, including three first-round losses.
“To get to the NCAA tournament we got to play great in our tournament,” he said. “We got to win it. That’s the great thing about March Madness.”
Hopkins also needs an extended postseason run to quiet the critics clamoring for a coaching change on Montlake. The sixth-year coach is 101-90 with the Huskies and has two years remaining after this season on a deal worth $6.3 million.