Inside The Huskies

Huskies Have Finished Up with Lame-Duck Basketball Coach Before

Forty years ago, Marv Harshman led the UW knowing he was being forced out.

Dan Raley

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The University of Washington basketball team, with a lame-duck coach, will open the Pac-12 Tournament against USC at noon on Wednesday in Las Vegas, which is a bit awkward.

However, the Huskies have done this before — finished up a season with a coach who has been fired — with current leader Mike Hopkins learning of his dismissal on Friday while given the opportunity to complete the postseason schedule.

Prior to the 1984-85 season, Marv Harshman was informed he wouldn't be returning to his Husky coaching job either, no matter how well his team performed — and it ended up in the NCAA Tournament against Kentucky.

The late UW president William Gerberding was not a big fan of Harshman and his sometimes fiery bench demeanor, thought he was too old to be coaching at 67 and asked that a change be made by athletic director Mike Lude, according to Lude.

Yet they permitted Harshman to coach a full season and treat it like one big retirement party to lessen the blow of him being dismissed after such an otherwise illustrious career.

It was Harshman's 40th year of coaching college basketball including prior stints at Pacific Lutheran and Washington State. He had been named Pac-10 Coach of the Year in 1982 and 1984. He even had just coached the Huskies to the Sweet 16 of the '84 NCAA Tournament. People gave him gifts throughout the ensuing season, including a pick-up truck.

Harshman, who compiled a 637-444 coaching record, nearly took the Hawaii job the following season but chose to end his career. He died in 2013 at 95. His starting center Christian Welp passed away in 2015 at 51 and his starting point guard Alvin Vaughn died this past December at 61.

 

Now comes Hopkins, whose UW team motto is "Tougher Together." In this case, he and his players will take on the Trojans knowing they're definitely going their separate ways later on.

New athletic director Troy Dannen made the move after the underachieving Huskies, with a veteran roster and quite possibly the league's best player in senior forward Keion Brooks, finished the regular season with a 17-14 record, 9-11 in league play. 

In seven seasons, Hopkins has a near break-even 118-105 UW coaching record that includes just one NCAA Tournament appearance. He was named Pac-12 Coach of the Year in his first two seasons, but the Huskies have been a mundane 70-83 since then.

The UW and ninth-seeded USC (14-17 overall, 8-12 Pac-12) just played eight days ago in Seattle and the Trojans won 82-75 behind freshman guard Isaiah Collier's 31 points. 

Should the eighth-seeded Huskies win this tourney opener at T-Mobile Arena, they would face the No. 1 Arizona Wildcats (24-7, 15-5) on Thursday, again at noon. 

On Saturday night, USC upset Arizona 78-65 in Los Angeles, making it tough for Hopkins and his guys once they reach Las Vegas.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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