UW Basketball Downturn is Reaching Uncomfortable Levels

The Huskies have some interesting pieces, but it's time to win. The program has dropped 19 of its past 25 games.

Quade Green looked like a bonafide All-Pac-12 player or better the other day against Oregon.

Riley Sorn appears to be more than a human victory cigar, getting more in tune with his towering 7-foot-4 frame.

RaeQuan Battle showed off his instant scoring ability against the Ducks, which was fun to watch and could make him a star.

Nate Pryor is deceptively good with the ball in his hands.

All of those positive developments aside, the overall University of Washington basketball program remains in a funk, going on 12 months now. It has little to do with the pandemic.

The bottom line is winning — and for the past 25 outings, the Huskies have done very little of it.

They dropped 15 of their final 20 games to close out last season.

They're 1-4 to begin this one.

More than ever, Mike Hopkins and his coaching staff, who send the Huskies up against Montana (1-4) on Wednesday night at Alaska Airlines Arena, need to turn this thing around.

It was totally on the coaches last season when the Huskies bottomed out and finished last in the Pac-12. It was mind-blowing what happened.

The UW collapsed after losing Green to academic shortcomings. No team should be solely dependent on a single player like that.

Gonzaga and Oregon don't do it this way. Syracuse doesn't do it this way.

How that happened with a pair of first-round NBA draft picks on the roster remains an all-time puzzler.

Nothing against this likeable, folksy man, but it's time for Hopkins to show there's more to him as a coach than winning with someone else's talent.

He remains forever optimistic about his guys, often offering sort of a humorous Woodstock peace and love outlook on things, but it all comes down to the win-loss column.

Hopkins is at a telling juncture with the Huskies. While his players try to bounce back from their losing ways, the coach needs to step up his game, as well.

Losing breeds program indifference and indifference causes upper campus to feel compelled to respond in some uncomfortable manner.

Losing scares recruits and fans away.

That's what happened to the previous four Husky head coaches in Lorenzo Romar, Bob Bender, Lynn Nance and Andy Russo.

They stopped winning and they were gone. Along the way, they seemed to lose control of their programs. Losing does that to you.

Russo and Nance received just four UW seasons to show what they could do.

Hopkins is in season four now. 

At the same time, this pandemic actually might give this congenial man a job security extension the others didn't have — everybody's dealing with empty seats these days.

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