Huskies survive

SEATTLE – Maybe now the Huskies will spend more time practicing their offense.

Or, perhaps more accurately, maybe now the Huskies need to start spending more time on their offense.

In the ninth game of a non-conference schedule that Lorenzo Romar has dedicated to defensive improvement, Washington played one of its best games on defense. The offense, however, struggled to find a rhythm, and the result was a closer-than-it-probably-should-have-been 67-63 victory over the University of Portland at Hec Edmundson Pavilion Saturday.

“Maybe temporarily,” Romar said when asked if the focus on defense has slowed his team’s offense. “With the emphasis on defense we have not spent a whole lot of time (on offense). I think this week we’ve spent 5-6 hours on defense and maybe one and a half on offense. Sometimes that shows. But the offense is something that we feel one or two days of practice can fix. Defense takes a little longer.”

In part because of the offensive struggles – Washington shot 33.3 percent in the first half, and 67 points represents the team’s second-lowest total of the season – the Huskies trailed for much of the afternoon and were never able to build a comfortable lead against the Pilots.

The result was very much in doubt until the final seconds, when Ryan Appleby sank a short jump shot as the shot clock expired with 7 seconds left on the game clock. With his team trailing by two, Portland point guard Taishi Ito missed a 3-pointer with 44 seconds left. Rather than foul the Huskies – who again struggled at the free-throw line, making just 55.6 percent of their attempts – the Pilots played for the stop with about an 8-second differential between the shot and game clocks, and Appleby made them pay.

“I’d prefer to get the stop and the win, but in hindsight, we should have fouled,” said Portland coach Eric Reveno. “You foul the wrong guy with 20 seconds and they make two free throws, then all of sudden you’re trying to score, and it’s not like we were scoring at will.”

The Pilots were indeed struggling to score, especially in the second half when they shot just 32.1 percent. Portland scored the fewest points by a Washington opponent since the Huskies’ season-opening win over New Jersey Tech. The Huskies, on the other hand, improved on offense in the second half, scoring 41 points while making 14 of 19 field-goal attempts (73.7 percent). That followed a 26-point first half.

The Huskies trailed by as many as seven points in the first half, and were behind 30-26 at halftime. They took a little bit longer than normal coming out of the locker room for the start of the second half.

“It was probably a little bit longer, but we played such a bad first half, we had a lot of stuff to go over,” said Appleby.

Whatever Washington went over during the intermission seemed to work for Appleby, who scored 18 points for the second straight game since coming back from a thumb injury that kept him out of Washington’s first seven games.

After scoring just four points in the first half and missing all three of his 3-point attempts, Appleby came out hot in the second half, sinking his first three shots – all 3-pointers – in the first 2 minutes of the half.

“Two consecutive games now, we’ve seen the value of Ryan Appleby to this team,” said Romar.

Appleby provided the offense on a night when Jon Brockman was held well below his average with 11 points and just five rebounds before fouling out late in the game.

Nik Raivio led Portland with a game-high 23 points and Ito added 13.