Husky men end ‘tough stretch’ with fifth consecutive loss, falling at Arizona State

TEMPE, Ariz. — Keion Brooks Jr., the Kentucky Wildcats transfer and Fort Wayne, Indiana, native, is new to Seattle so he can be forgiven for using an analogy that runs counter to Pacific Northwest winters to sum up the current state of the Washington men’s basketball team.

“It ain’t going to rain forever,” the Husky standout said. “The sun has got to come out eventually.”

Really?

When — and if — the sun shines on the Huskies, the team will be fundamentally changed by a losing streak that’s up to five losses after a 73-65 defeat against Arizona State on Sunday in front of 7,020 at Desert Financial Arena.

“We just got to keep fighting and believing,” Brooks said when asked how UW can stop its string of setbacks. “We have to believe in each other and we believe in the coaching staff.

“You just got to keep fighting. Keep grinding away. Got to stack those good days in practice. Stay disciplined with our good habits. And don’t splinter. At a time like this, people can start going this way and another way. But this is the time we really need to come together and believe in each other.”

Three weeks ago, Brooks examined UW’s daunting stretch of games, which included No. 22 Auburn, USC, No. 10 UCLA, No. 5 Arizona and Arizona State, and declined to speculate how the Huskies would fare.

“We can’t talk about it,” he said at the time. “We got to be about it.”

In retrospect, Washington (9-8, 1-5 Pac-12) was drubbed and dropped every game by double digits, not including a 70-67 loss against Arizona on Thursday.

Considering UW led for most of the game in the three-point setback three days ago, the Huskies believed they rediscovered a winning formula that’s been missing ever since their 9-3 start.

“We didn’t have the same bounce and pop in our step,” Brooks said. “Didn’t have the same attention to detail. Some things didn’t go our way early, and we didn’t stay together as much as we needed to.

“In the last game, there’s no moral victories, but we stayed positive the whole time. We kept believing in one another, but this time when the [stuff] hit the fan we couldn’t collectively come back and get together and say we’ll be all right.”

For about 22 minutes, Washington, which trailed 28-26 at halftime, appeared to be evenly matched with Arizona State until the Sun Devils used an early second-half flurry to put the game out of reach.

“I felt like in the first half we had better energy,” coach Mike Hopkins said. “Our defense was handling them pretty well. … In the second half, just felt like our energy levels didn’t have the pop. Seems like they were getting wherever they wanted to get.”

Making open shots proved to be a herculean effort for both teams in the first half when they combined to convert 20 of 67 shots, including 7 of 27 on three-pointers.

The task became increasingly difficult for the Huskies when 7-foot-1 center Braxton Meah collected his fourth foul with 18:53 left that prompted his exit and forced UW to rely on a four-guard lineup with the 6-7 Brooks in the post.

“He’s been doing a great job of playing without getting in foul trouble,” Hopkins said about Meah, who finished with three points and four rebounds in 14 minutes. “That was a big loss.”

Washington was down 30-28 when Arizona State used a momentum-swinging 24-11 run over a nine-minute span to go up 54-39.

The Huskies answered with a 7-0 spurt and cut their deficit to 54-46 when the Sun Devils buried them with a decisive 12-2 run capped by a Jamiya Neal’s highflying dunk with 3:18 left.

Arizona State shot 54.3% from the field in the second half while Hopkins lamented a lethargic UW offensive attack that, for the game, was 35.8% on field goals, including 7 of 25 on three-pointers and 10 of 14 at the free-throw line.

“I don’t know why the ball stopped,” Hopkins said. “We kept reinforcing, we got to keep it moving. We can’t stop. You got to move good defenses around. … You got to break it. You got to cut. You got to move and we just didn’t have that tonight.

“I can’t tell you why. We work on it. We did it all day yesterday (in practice). You got to be able to go in there and execute it in a game. It helps us when we do it and we get hurt when we’re stagnant and we don’t do it.”

Noah Williams, who had eight rebounds, and Brooks, who had 11 boards, each had 15 points. Jamal Bey added 12 and Keyon Menifield finished with 10 points and eight assists for the Huskies.

“We just have some of these little slumps — 6-minute and 7-minute periods — where we just go scoreless,” Hopkins said. “And that can’t happen.”

Devan Cambridge had 18 points, Neal 14, DJ Horne 12 and Frankie Collins 10 for ASU, which improved to 13-3, 4-1.

The Huskies return to Seattle for a couple of must-win games against the Bay Area schools, starting 8 p.m. Thursday against Stanford (5-10, 0-5) followed by Saturday’s matchup versus California (3-13, 2-3).

“I don’t see them low and dejected,” Hopkins said. “They’re obviously disappointed that we lost. I think they’re obviously frustrated, but we talk about it all the time if you execute the game plan, then we’re going to put ourselves in position.

“I told our guys DMGB [doesn’t matter get better]. We obviously had a tough [five]-game stretch … we got to use it to our advantage and we got to go on our own streak. Last year when we went through a little four-game lull in the middle of the year, you just got to bounce back. It’s a long season. Lot of games. Get back home. Nothing is like getting a home-cooked meal after playing on the road and struggling a little bit.”