Huskies Have Nothing to Offer Michigan State, Get Embarrassed

The UW goes the first 10 and a half minutes of the game without a field goal.

Huskies back-up center KC Ibekwe (24) tries to get a shot over Michigan State center Szymon Zapala in East Lansing. / Dale Young-Imagn Images

Before leaving Montlake this week, Danny Sprinkle cautioned his University of Washington basketball team that life on the road in the Midwest Big Ten could be brutal, but the Huskies really didn't comprehend what he was talking about.

After what happened to them on Thursday night at Michigan State, these guys know now. They got the message. It was real painful, too.

Sprinkle's sometimes overly fragile players experienced a horrendous outing, at one point threatening to go all night without scoring a field goal while offering nothing resembling defense and they lost 88-54.

After beating Maryland and nearly upsetting Illinois at home, the Huskies (10-6 overall, 1-4 Big Ten) carried over none of that feel-good stuff, folded up right from the start and conceded this one early at the sold-out Breslin Center.

"They played with a lot more competitive spirit than my group did, that's probably the main thing," Sprinkle said. "I'm not disappointed with missing shots or aggressive turnovers, but our competitive spirit wasn't there, our physicality and our toughness."

They went the first 10:26 of the game without even scoring a field goal -- a glacially cold 0-for-14 spell -- until KC Ibekwe followed up a teammate's miss with a put-back shot, cutting the Husky deficit to 16-4 and finally putting a field goal into the scorebook.

The previously little-used Ibekwe, a 6-foot-10, 287-pound Oregon State transfer, actually supplied two of the UW's first three field goals on the night, getting into the game against the 16th-ranked Spartans (13-2, 3-0) much earlier than usual.

That's because Sprinkle kept shuttling players in and out looking for someone not suffering from stage fright or having forgotten how to pass or dribble the ball.

The UW didn't knock down a 3-pointer until Tyler Harris found the range with 13:37 left to play, pulling his team within 57-25. Harris, the 6-foot-8 Portland transfer, was the only Sprinkle player who was able to settle in and score in double figures, leading his team with 14 points.

Great Osobor, the Huskies' leader in just about every stat category coming in, similarly suffered right along with the rest of his teammates as he missed all of his six first-half shots and scored a single free throw as the Spartans rushed out to a 42-13 lead by the break.

The 6-foot-8 Osobor played just 19 minutes of this game, sitting out most of the second half with the outing way out of reach, and he finished 0 for 8 from the field and with just 6 points, all on free throws.

Looking for more magic from shooting guard DJ Davis, who had 17- and 31-point games at home largely from 3-point range last week, the UW couldn't spring him loose for more than a solitary shot in the opening half and no points. He finally dropped in a trey with three and a half minutes remaining in the contest for his only points coming on three shot attempts.

Freshman Zoom Diallo had possibly his most miserable effort of the season, drawing four fouls with the second half just a minute and a half old and taking a seat. He finished with 8 points on 4-for-10 shooting.

It mattered little that the Huskies dressed for this one in their white uniforms, a color normally reserved for the home team, because the Spartans opted for their all-green basketball wardrobe.

Watching this mess unfold was touted freshman forward Domique Diomande, who traveled from France to join this UW team. He no doubt came away convinced he is needed, and the sooner the better.

"We have to get a lot more tougher mentally and a lot more competitive and physical," Sprinkle said.

After this Michigan State meltdown, the Huskies have two days to regroup and think about things before facing 24th-ranked Michigan on Sunday in Ann Arbor.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington