University of Washington
BYU
BYU Sprints Past Huskies, 80-55
November 20, 2010 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 20, 2010
PROVO, Utah - The circumstances weren't ideal.
Playing without a pair of starters and on the road against a desperate opponent, the Washington women's basketball team faced stiff odds as they took to the court at the Marriott Center. Despite a valiant effort with Huskies playing out of their roles, the Huskies fell to BYU, 80-55, on Saturday afternoon.
Heading into the game against the Cougars, the Huskies (1-1) had to adjust their lineup after Sarah Morton (ankle) and Regina Rogers (hamstring) were ruled out of the contest. Morton remained in Seattle, while Rogers' absence was a game-time decision. The task at hand was to put away a BYU team that had dropped its first two games of the year. UW's makeshift lineup - at one point, the Huskies had five freshmen on the floor - gave the Cougars all sorts of fits in the first half, but then the vaunted BYU perimeter offense exploded in the second stanza. Overall, the Cougars outscored the Huskies 41-23 in the final 20 minutes.
With the season still early, and the Pac-10 schedule not yet in focus, the goal for Coach Tia Jackson was to force feed her young players these valuable minutes to build them up for the rigors ahead.
"Our freshmen need experience," Jackson said. "We're going to chalk it up as that. We're going to get experience again when we head up to Alaska and we'll deal with it."
Despite the margin, the Huskies had a couple of stellar performances to build on. Mackenzie Argens finished the game with a career-best 17 rebounds, easily surpassing her previous best of 11. Charmaine Barlow also picked up some scoring slack, tallying a career-high 10 points. Marjorie Heard provided post defense and rebounding, notching six.
Jackson said it was clear that Argens was the Player of the Game, noting her performance on the boards was the biggest take away from the trip to Provo.
"Mack definitely picked up the slack," Jackson said. "I had to acknowledge (her effort) in the locker room afterwards. But now she's set the bar high. Her coach expects 17 a game every night."
Kristi Kingma and Mollie Williams each tied for the team lead in points with 12. The Cougars were paced by Stephanie Vermunt, who pumped in 17 points off the bench. Mindy Bonham added 15 for the Cougars, who showcased their prolific range, hitting 11 3-pointers, including a game-high four for Vermunt.
Knowing the Huskies were sporting a thin lineup, the Cougars made it a directive to ramp up their full-court pressure. That combined with the 4,000-plus feet of altitude made for an inhospitable environment. The Cougars were no doubt fueled by their memories of last year's game in Seattle, when Sami Whitcomb (who is the team's video coordinator) hit a last-gasp 3-pointer from the top of the key to improbably the Huskies back.
This year's version of the Cougars returned four starters from a team that won 23 games and went to the quarterfinals of the WNIT. Yet it was the Huskies who dictated pressure early, forcing the BYU starters into foul trouble and controlling the boards. Once BYU found its legs, the game see-sawed, with the lead changing four times before the Cougars took control for good with a 3-pointer by Haley Hall with 4:46 remaining the first half.
"I thought for the most part we came out can played a good 18 minutes of basketball," Jackson said. "But the other 22, we can't have letdowns defensively. That's what (BYU) does. The moment we take a pause defensively, they're going to kill you."
Washington's game at the Marriott Center was part of a packed BYU schedule that included home games from nearly all the fall and winter sports. So the Cougars announced that fans could attend the game against Washington free of charge, leading to a higher-than-expected crowd of 720.
The Huskies stay on the road continues on Sunday when the team jets up to Alaska to take part in the Carrs/Safeway Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage. The team opens up the tournament on Tuesday evening against Kent State at 9 p.m. (PST).
