Season Review: Huskies Enter Unchartered Territory
April 6, 2012
SEATTLE - Once again, Husky Coach Lorenzo Romar led the Huskies to unchartered territory in 2011-12. The list is long of accomplishments that helps solidify Washington as one of the elite college basketball programs in the nation. Here is a quick overview of some of the program's accomplishments during the year:
• For the first time in school history, the Huskies have won 20 or more games in four-straight seasons.
• Washington has amassed 100 wins over the last four seasons, the first time in program history they have reached the century mark in a four-year span.
• The Huskies won the Pac-12 regular season title with a 14-4 record, their 23rd conference title since 1911 -- 18 of those crowns are outright -- but only two of those have come in the last 58 years (2009 & 2012).
• Fourteen conference wins equals the 4th most in team history and just the 9th time the Huskies have acheived that many league victories.
• UW advanced to the semifinals of the 2012 NIT Tournament, the furthest they have advanced in the post-season tournament and furthest they have advanced in either the NIT or NCAA's since 1953.
• Tony Wroten was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, the fifth time in UW history they have won the award.
• Wroten and Terrence Ross both earned first team All-Pac-12 honors, making UW the only team with multiple players on the first team in four-straight years.
• Six Huskies dotted NBA rosters during the season. Jon Brockman (Milwaukee), Justin Dentmon (San Antonio), Spencer Hawes (Philadelphia), Quincy Pondexter (Memphis), Nate Robinson (Golden State) and Isaiah Thomas (Sacramento) all made appearances during the 2012 season.
20/20/20/20 Visions
The Huskies have 20-plus wins in four-straight season for the first time in team history. Washington had won 20-plus in three consecutive seasons two times previously: 1951-53 and 1943-45. The Huskies have won 20+ games for the sixth time under Lorenzo Romar and for the 27th time overall in team history. The only other Husky coach with more 20-win seasons is Hec Edmundson, who accomplished the feat 11 times from 1928-1945. Washington has now won 100 games during a four-season span from 2009-12 (26 in 2009, 26 in 2010, 24 in 2011, 24 in 2012), besting the previous top four-year stretch in team history: 96 wins from 1950-53 under Art McClarey (19) & Tippy Dye (77).
Post-Seasons Under Romar
For the fifth-straight year Washington is making a post-season appearance. After playing in the 2008 CBI, UW made three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. In all, Washington has made 8 post-season tournaments in Lorenzo Romar's 10 years tenure. The Huskies are 11-7 in post-season tournaments, including 8-6 in six NCAA appearances and 0-1 in the 2008 CBI and 3-0 in NIT appearances. This marks the first NIT appearance for Washington under Romar. Romar led his Pepperdine Waves to the 1999 NIT in his last season coaching there and lost in the first round.
UW's NIT Run
The Huskies were a No. 1 seed for the 2012 NIT and advanced all the way to the semifinals in New York City before falling in overtime, 68-67, to Minnesota at Madison Square Garden. Terrence Ross played his best stretch of basketball during the Huskies four-game run, averaging 25 points per game and earning a spot on the NIT all-tournament team. The Huskies played their first three games of the tournament at home, handling business over UT Arlington (82-72) and Northwestern (76-55) before taking down their Pac-12 rival Oregon Ducks in the quarterfinals. In front of an electric atmosphere, UW beat the Ducks 90-86 behind Ross' 24 points to book their second trip to NYC of the season. The Huskies were the top seed in NYC, but Minnesota gave the Dawgs all they could handle. The Golden Gophers led 38-26 at halftime before Washington was able to mount a furious second-half rally. A C.J. Wilcox steal and bucket tied the game with 15-second left in regulation, ultimately forcing overtime, but the Huskies fell just short, ending their season with a 24-11 record.
The Road To The NIT
Washington was 6-5 in non-conference action during the preseason. Four of their five losses came to teams that made the NCAA tournament field (Duke, Marquette, South Dakota State and Saint Louis). Their other loss came to WAC regular season champion and NIT participant Nevada.
The Huskies won the regular season Pac-12 championship after posting a 14-4 record, just the fourth time they have had that many conference wins since the Pac-10 started in 1979. Despite the great stretch, UW was denied an NCAA tourney bid. It's the first time a "power" conference regular season champion has been denied an invite to the Big Dance and just the first time since 1954 that the Pacific Coast Conference/Pac-10/Pac-12 regular-season champ was left home.
2012 Pac-12 Tournament Flashback
After winning the 2010 and 2011 Pac-10 Tournaments as the No. 3 seed, the regular season champion and top-seeded Huskies had a short trip to Los Angeles this year. Washington became the first No. 1 seed to ever lose to the No. 9 seed when Oregon State beat the Huskies 86-84 in the quarterfinals. In the loss there were several interesting notes:
• UW trailed by 15 with 19:25 to play before going on a 21-5 run to tie the score at 54 by the 12:54 mark. They continued that run and had outscored OSU 33-10 by 8:46 mark and held its largest lead of 8, 66-58.
• Tony Wroten scored a career-high and UW freshman record 29 points. He had made six consecutive free throws before missing four in the final 18 seconds.
• Washington had 10 turnover in the first half and trailed by 13 at the break. In the second half, the Huskies had two turnovers, both coming in the final 2:19 in crucial times. Abdul Gaddy slipped on the floor in the backcourt, allowing Ahmad Starks to steal the ball and lead to an easy bucket to cut the UW lead to 2 points. The 2nd turnover came when Terrence Ross was called for a charge with UW up 1 and 43-seconds on the clock. OSU would score on the ensuing possession and never give back the lead.
• After shooting just five FTs in the first half, UW attempted 21 in the second half, but converted just 9 of them (42.9%). Overall, UW was 46.2% from the free throw line, the sixth time this year they shot below 50%. UW started 4-0 in games where they shot that poorly, but are 0-2 since (also at Oregon on Feb. 9).
Unprecedented Success Under Romar
The Huskies are enjoying their greatest stretch of success in team history under the direction of Lorenzo Romar. Besides three Sweet 16 appearances, three Pac-10 tournament championships, two regular-season conference titles & a trip to the NIT semifinals, the numbers show Romar has entered unchartered territory. Since 2004-2005 -- Romar's third season at UW -- the Huskies have won 190 games, the most ever in a eight-year span of UW basketball history. He has avg 21.9 wins per season during his 10-year UW career and has amassed four of the seven largest single-season win totals in UW history. Romar earned his sixth 20-win season in 2012, including a school record four-consecutive seasons, and only trails Hec Edmundson's 11 seasons with 20+ wins.
HUSKY QUICK HITTERS
PLAYERS
• Tony Wroten was the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and was 1st team All-Conference. Terrence Ross was 1st team All-Conference, C.J. Wilcox was honorable mention All-Conference, Aziz N'Diaye was 1st team All-Defensive.
• Wroten owns the UW freshman record for points, steals and assists. He was also fifth all-time in rebounds. His steal total of 66 was one shy of the all-time school record. He also set a new team record with 131 turnovers.
• Abdul Gaddy's 312 career assists are 8th all-time in Husky history. His 182 assists during the year were the 3rd most on the UW single-season list.
• Darnell Gant owns the UW record with 140 games played, passing Quincy Pondexter and Matthew Bryan-Amaning who played in 136 games. UW is 100-41 with Gant on the team, the most wins in any players' career.
• Terrence Ross and Washington State's Brock Motum were the only two Pac-12 player to be ranked in the top-10 in both scoring and rebounding.
• C.J. Wilcox and Terrence Ross are the 10th & 11th players in UW history with 100 or more career 3-pointers. Wilcox is 5th all-time in UW history with 136, while Ross ranks 10th all-time with 116.
• Wroten was one of five Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year candidates. He joined Kentucky teammates Anthony Davis (winner) & Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Indiana's Cody Zeller and Duke's Austin Rivers on the list.
• Wroten and Detlef Schrempf (1985) are the only Huskies with 500 points, 150 rebounds and 100 assists in a season.
• Desmond Simmons is 5th all-time among UW freshmen with 169 rebounds, trailing Wroten on the list.
• Austin Seferian-Jenkins is the 19th known Husky to play both football and basketball at Washington, the first since Nate Robinson (2002 FB, 2003-05 BB).
• Wroten attempted 33% of the Huskies free throws this season and made 31% of the teams' total. His 264 attempts tied for 3rd most in team history
• Wroten led all Pac-12 freshmen in scoring, steals and assists. He ranked 5th among all freshmen nationally in scoring and 2nd among all BCS conference freshmen.
TEAM
• In 10 years under Romar, UW is 147-27 (.845) overall at home, 76-6 (.927) in non-conference games.
•UW is 100-41 over the last four years, the 1st time ever they have reached 100 wins in a four-year span.
•Dating back to 1911, UW has won 23 conference titles -- 18 of those crowns are outright -- but only two of those have come in the last 58 years (2009 & 2012).
•Washington was 14-4 in conference play, the 9th time they have achieved as many league wins since 1931 and just the 4th time since Pac-10 play began in 1979.
•The Huskies are the first "power" conference regular-season champ to not earn an NCAA tourney bid and are the first Pac-12/10/PCC regular-season champ since 1954 to be left out of the dance.
• UW has won 20 or more games in four-straight seasons for the first time in school history.
• UW leads the Pac-12 in total rebounds (40.1) and ranked 5th nationally. They have led the conference in rebounding 4-straight seasons and are the first conference team to do so since UCLA did it 9 times from 1966-74.
• UW was 2nd in the conference and 29th nationally with 75.6 points per game. They had led the Pac-10 in scoring the previous three seasons.
• UW is the only Pac-12 team that had 3 players ranked among the conference's top-10 in scoring. Terrence Ross was 4th (16.4) Tony Wroten was 5th (16.4), and C.J. Wilcox 7th (14.2).
• The Huskies have 878 wins inside Hec Edmundson Pavilion, more than any other program in their current arena.
• UW won all four regular season games vs. Arizona State and Arizona for just the fourth time in team history. UW previously did it in 2004, 1984 and 1982.
• UW swept at ASU and Arizona for the first time since 2006 and just the fifth time overall in team history.
• The 57 points that Washington scored against Utah were the second fewest in a Husky victory during the Lorenzo Romar era. On Dec. 23, 2005, the Huskies beat Lehigh 54-37.
COACH ROMAR
• Lorenzo Romar won conference Coach of the Year for the third time. He also won in 2009 and 2005. He is the first Husky coach with that many honors.
• Romar joins Cal's Mike Montgomery and UCLA's Ben Howland with 100 conference victories each. The last time three or more coaches had 100 league wins at the same time was 1964 - OSU's Slats Gill (276), UCLA's John Wooden (171) and USC's Forrest Twogood (121).
• Romar has reached the following milestone victories this season: 200 wins at UW (12/16 vs. UC-Santa Barb.), 300 overall wins and 100 conference wins (both 1/21 vs. Stanford). He also coached his 500th career game on Feb. 2 vs. UCLA. His last loss vs. OSU was also the 200th of his coaching career.
