Advertisement

Underachieving Washington has too many issues for Markelle Fultz to fix

The Huskies are off to a dismal 4-4 start despite the presence of transcendent freshman Markelle Fultz (AP).
The Huskies are off to a dismal 4-4 start despite the presence of transcendent freshman Markelle Fultz (AP).

Less than two minutes into the second half of his team’s 98-71 demolition of Washington on Wednesday night, Gonzaga’s Przemek Karnowski found himself in a position he has seldom experienced before.

The plodding center beat every Huskies player down court, caught a perfectly weighted pass in stride and threw down an uncontested two-handed transition dunk.

That sequence perfectly captured the essence of what’s wrong with Washington. Only a team as undisciplined as the Huskies could allow a 7-foot, 300-pound man to blow by them on a fast break. And only a coach as lenient as Lorenzo Romar would let that slide without calling timeout to yank each of his players off the floor.

Disorganized offense and lackluster defense quickly doomed Washington’s hopes of staying competitive in Spokane. Eighth-ranked Gonzaga led by 21 points after eight minutes, by 25 at halftime and by as many as 34 early in the second half en route to an overpowering win in the first scheduled meeting between the two in-state rivals since 2006.

Such a deflating loss only heightens concerns that Washington will waste transcendent freshman Markelle Fultz’s lone year on campus just like underachieving LSU did with Ben Simmons last season. While Fultz has averaged an impressive 22.9 points and 5.9 assists per game, the Huskies are still just 4-4 with no marquee wins, two losses to Big 12 bottom feeder TCU and another setback at home against Yale.

Washington’s poor start increases the pressure on Romar to meet the standard established earlier in his tenure when he led the Huskies to two Pac-12 titles, three Sweet 16s and six NCAA bids from 2004-2012. Romar has continued to recruit and develop NBA talent since then, but Washington has missed five straight NCAA tournaments and has finished .500 or worse in league play each of the past four seasons.

Halting either trend this season was always going to be a challenge since Washington doesn’t boast the supporting cast it expected to have around Fultz. Dejounte Murray and Marquese Chriss both blossomed quicker than expected as freshmen and entered last June’s NBA draft, leaving Romar no choice but to assign bigger roles to guys like David Crisp, Matisse Thybulle and Noah Dickerson before they had proven they were ready.

It also doesn’t help that Romar’s philosophy with talented young players has always been to let them play through their mistakes. That’s a big reason why Washington is an attractive destination for marquee recruits, but it also explains why the Huskies frequently run a helter-skelter offense and surrender points at an alarming rate.

No Washington team in the Romar era has ever looked quite as clueless as this one does on defense. The Huskies were 204th nationally in points per possession surrendered entering Wednesday’s game, numbers that only got worse after Gonzaga shredded them for 98 points on 53.8 percent shooting despite pulling its starters early.

Sometimes Washington’s guards went under screens against Gonzaga’s best deep threats as though they didn’t know the scouting report. Other times the Huskies lost sight of the man they were guarding on backdoor cuts or failed to close out on a shooter with any urgency. There were also numerous plays in which Gonzaga got to the free throw line because a defender had to resort to fouling after getting off balance or out of position.

Washington transfer Nigel Williams-Goss led Gonzaga with 23 points on 9-for-13 shooting, an impressive show of poise and restraint considering he was playing against his former team. Karnowski had 17 points and sharpshooter Jordan Mathews scored 14.

Fultz led Washington with 25 points, however, he took 26 shots and only recorded a season-low one assist. Most of his baskets came during the second half when the outcome had long since already been decided.

Credit Gonzaga for having the talent, precision and relentlessness to throttle Washington and remain undefeated this season, but how good the Zags are was not the main takeaway from Wednesday’s outcome.

This game was all about an undisciplined, disorganized Washington team, its once-beloved and now-embattled coach and a freshman whose lone college season is already circling the drain.

– – – – – – –

Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!