Traveling halfway across the country, the University of Washington basketball team on Saturday woke up in Iowa, which is probably the closest it will get to Indianapolis and the Big Ten Tournament.
Squandering yet another opportunity to extend their season, the Huskies didn’t trail for the first 31 minutes of play — but never led again once they fell behind — and dropped an 85-79 decision to the Hawkeyes, seriously damaging their postseason hopes.
Danny Sprinkle’s team played with purpose three-quarters of the way, even building a 12-point lead midway though the opening half, but fell below .500 for the first time this season (13-14 overall, 4-12 league) to remain 18th and dead last in the Big Ten standings.
The conference takes only the top 15 teams into its postseason event in three weeks. The UW has just four games remaining in the regular season.
“We’ve got to play for the name on the front of the jersey,” Sprinkle said. “We have to play for pride.”
Riley Mulvey, a reserve 6-foot-11 center, put his short-handed Hawkeyes (15-12, 6-10) ahead for good at 68-66 with a lay-in with 5:17 left to play, while teammate Payton Sandfort, a 6-foot-8 senior and one of two brothers on the team, led all scorers with 27 points.
For the Huskies, junior guard Mekhi Mason topped them in scoring with 19, while DJ Davis provided 17 points on 5-for-8 3-pointng after missing the previous game. Great Osobor had yet another double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds.
Iowa was missing its leading scorer, 6-foot-10, 245-pound sophomore center Owen Freeman, who was lost three weeks earlier with a season-ending broken finger. The 16.7-point scorer sat on the bench with his teammates in a gray hoodie.
Beginning with Osobor’s follow of his own missed shot for a 2-0 edge, the Huskies led from the opening tip throughout all the way to the 13:49 mark of the second half when they were tied for the first time at 48 on reserve guard Brock Harding’s 3-pointer.
Early on, they went up by as many as 21-9 on a 3-pointer by Davis and had the home team reeling and crowd murmering.
Iowa got back in by turning to those Sandfort brothers, Payton and Pryce, a senior and a sophomore, who together scored 10 consecutive points for the home team to pull it within 25-20 with 3:14 remaining in the half.
At halftime, the Hawkeyes had come all the way back to trail just 34-33, the closest the teams had been since the opening basket.
Not always a good second-half team, the UW came out and scored the first eight points after the break, the last two coming on a Zoom Diallo jumper from the key, to regain a 42-33 edge.
As it turned out, the Huskies still weren’t a good second-half team, folding up inside the six-minute mark by getting outscored 19-13 to the final buzzer.
Sprinkle’s guys now limp into Wisconsin for another road game in Madison against the 11th-ranked Badgers (21-6, 11-5) on Tuesday before returning home.
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