With Too Many Key Guys Seated, Huskies Drop One at USC

Forward Cole Bajema serves his suspension while center Braxton Meah fouls out.

Wearing tan sweats, swingman Cole Bajema occupied a seat halfway down the bench for the University of Washington basketball team and served out his one-game suspension against USC.

Watching his teammates play was added punishment.

On Saturday night, the Huskies kept things in question until they did a second-half fade, getting outscored 14-2 coming down the stretch and losing 80-74 to the Trojans in Los Angeles.

Kobe Johnson's 3-pointer with 3:53 left to play put the home team up for good at 63-60, which was sort of  ironic since USC otherwise was terrible launching shots from behind the line (4 for 22).

Senior forward Keion Brooks and freshman guard Keyon Menifield topped the Huskies with 22 and 21 points, respectively, with Brooks supplying 12 rebounds, as well. 

USC was topped by a pair of young guys in freshman guard Tre White, who scored 22, and Johnson, a sophomore forward who provided 21. Both point totals were career highs. 

Bajema, of course, was held out of the action after the Pac-12 Conference determined in a film review that the 6-foot-7 senior swingman had committed a flagrant foul at UCLA rather than a personal foul and this required a game ejection that didn't happen.

As a consequence, Bajema sat and witnessed his UW basketball team drop its third consecutive game, and ninth in its last 13 outings.

As the Huskies (13-12 overall, 5-9 Pac-12) continue to struggle, Mike Hopkins' chances of returning as coach seem to diminish with each setback.

It's unclear whether Bajema, the UW's second-leading scorer at 9.9 point per game and a 23-game starter, would have made that much of a difference against the third-place Trojans (17-6, 9-3), who won their fourth consecutive outing.

The Huskies still are a team that just doesn't play very smart, whether it's turning the ball over at a high rate (15 this time) or committing mindless fouls, with the latter really hurting Hopkins' team this time. 

The Huskies' 7-foot-1 junior center Braxton Meah, who threw down three dunks early, took himself out of the game in a most haphazard way — the big man incredibly drew three fouls in 44 seconds midway the first half.

Once Meah sat down, the Huskies were outscored 10-2, gave up the lead at 24-22 and fell behind by as many as nine, at 31-22. USC led 34-29 as the teams broke for halftime.

The Huskies, with Meah back in the lineup and supplying a pair of dunks, went on a 10-0 spurt to open the second half and the game was competitive again.

The teams even settled into a tense battle until Meah fouled out with 8:07 left to play and his team trailing 51-48 on a weird play. He got tangled up inside with 7-foot-1 freshman Vincent Iwuchukwu and drew his fifth personal foul while the Trojan big man was given a technical foul.

Meah sat down with 11 points, after hitting all 5 of his shot attempts, and he grabbed a seat not far from Bajema, and all they could was watch and grimace.

The Huskies don't play again until the following Saturday night, when they host Washington State (10-15, 5-9) in a 7:30 p.m. tipoff.

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