Huskies Overcome Horrendous Start, Blow 14-Point Lead, Win in OT

The UW wins a wacky one full of never-ending twists and turns.

Not even two minutes into Thursday night's Washington-Arizona State basketball game, Mike Hopkins pulled starting guard Keyon Menifield and replaced him with fellow freshman Koren Johnson. The reason: a bad pass.

Sixty-three seconds later at Alaska Airlines Arena, the Husky coach sat down his other backcourt starter, replacing Noah Williams with fellow senior PJ Fuller. The cause: another sloppy turnover.

A clearly frustrated Hopkins — maybe watching the season and his job slipping away from him — called a timeout with 16:24 left in the opening half in an effort to try and settle his guys down.

Things would get worse before they got better, with the Huskies falling behind 12-0 and going nearly the first six minutes without scoring. 

And then things got a lot better, miraculously better.

Then worse again. 

And finally better. 

The UW won 69-66 in overtime.

Hopkins might want to retire after this one. He's officially now seen it all. He claimed he came away with two new gray hairs on his mostly bald head.

In a totally weird Pac-12 Conference game, the Huskies (13-9 overall, 5-6 Pac-12) suffered, celebrated, and suffered before staggering away as the victor.

What an emotional roller coaster.  What a mental tennis match.

The UW scored the first seven points of the extra session to finally put this madness to an end, with Williams dropping in a one-hander 42 seconds into it, followed by a Keion Brooks 3-pointer and Williams' two free throws before the visitors could respond. 

Brooks led the Huskies in scoring with 22 and Williams added 18. Of course, this one had to have an extra strange stat to it: consider 7-foot-1 center Braxton Meah finished with zero points, zero shot attempts and 11 rebounds.

Williams, who played 34 minutes and is still recouping from in-season knee surgery, took upon himself to force the issue. 

"I'm a warrior," he said flatly.

The game ended with ASU's Desmond Cambridge Jr., who led all scorers with 26 points and is one of two brothers on the team, firing up an off-balance 3-pointer from the corner for the tie that missed everything.

Still, he had everyone watching his shot sail through the air until it harmlessly bounced onto the floor.

"There were so many swings, it was like a stormy night on the ocean," Hopkins said.. 

After falling behind by those dozen points early on, the UW somehow led by 14 points before halftime. They hung in there throughout the second half, tied but never trailing, but then fouled Sun Devils freshman guard Austin Nunez with a sixth of a second left at the end of regulation. Costly mistake. It brought another five minutes of play.

Extra cool in a big spot, Nunez forced the overtime by sinking all three attempts.

All of this came after Cole Bajema dropped in three consecutive howitzer 3-pointers and Brooks scored three baskets in a row in a minute's time as this embattled Husky team regrouped and outscored Arizona State an emphatic 23-4 to close out the opening half.

Cole Bajema had three first-half 3-pointers that helped pull the Huskies from a 12=0 deficit and put them up by 14.  :: Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports

The Sun Devils (15-6, 6-4) helped things out considerably by finding it impossible to hit a shot, going a miserable 6 for 32, including 2 for 12 from behind the line, over the opening 20 minutes. 

ASU fell behind by as much as 14 before trimming their sudden and wholly unexpected deficit to 32-20 at intermission.

Yet the second half of this game still needed to be played. And an overtime, too. Nobody said this would be easy. It wasn't.

Over the next 20 minutes of regulation, both sides better resembled Pac-12 teams rather than some Green Lake pick-up game. The Huskies were done throwing the ball away with reckless abandon, though they finished with 22, and the Sun Devils started making shots, though they shot just 30 percent for the night.

With 4:36 left to play in regulation, ASU finally caught up to the Huskies and tied the game at 48 when Desmond Cambridge Jr. took a lob inside and laid the ball in. Yet this was just the beginning of a wacky close-out that went to the Huskies.

Nearly 10 minutes of clock time later, it was over and people headed home much later than planned yet thoroughly entertained by why they saw. 

"We're resilient," Brooks said.

"We found a way," Hopkins concluded. 

---

Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published.

Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.

Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12

Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3

Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.