Thoughts and Observations on the Huskies’ 62-61 Loss to UCLA

Bret Hartman / LA Times

Ugh. . .

After the game, nearly in tears, Quincy Pondexter talked about how he didn’t think there was any chance the Huskies would lose this game. Me neither, and I’m not sure where this leaves us.

Here’s some thoughts on last night’s game:

Poor Quincy. He really was struggling during his post-game radio interview to keep it together. And, rightfully so. Win this game, and the team could legitimately say they’d turned a corner. Now, though, the road woes hang over them like black cloud.

Conventional wisdom says that home court is worth about 10 points in a basketball game. To the Huskies, though, it looks like it’s worth about 30.

We forced 16 turnovers, which isn’t terrible, but the defensive intensity of last weekend just wasn’t there.

Justin Holiday wasn’t a huge factor tonight. He had two ugly turnovers. And even his defense looked only pedestrian against Nikola Dragovic, who looked good early, but then disappeared late in the game.

Bright side: Abdul Gaddy is looking better every game. I even thought his defense looked okay tonight.

What’s up with the rotation? Venoy played only 12 minutes tonight, and Matthew Bryan-Amaning only four. Sometimes our substitution patterns seem almost random.

Instead of MBA, we get Darnell Gant picking up two costly fouls late in the game, and taking an inexplicable turnaround jumper in the lane when we’re down three points with four minutes to go.

Our interior defense is horrific. We got beat three or four times with simple passes over our entire defense Thursday night.

Reeves Nelson looks a little like a poor man’s Jon Brockman — if Brockman were a whiny little snot. (Sorry, I’m still upset about the game)

Isn’t the midrange jumper something we should be able to hit more consistently than the three-point shot?

Isaiah looked good on defense tonight, but gawd, he needs to find a way to score against the zone. A simple 2-3 turns him from Mighty Mouse to Minnie Mouse.

Dammit. Here’s what I wrote in my notes with 9:53 left in the first half, and the Huskies up 24-21:  Only hanging because shot is falling! Not playing great, but hitting shots.

Final thought: This one would’ve been easier to digest if we’d laid a total egg. But we didn’t. We just didn’t play enough D, and our shot stopped falling in the second half. As Romar said, the effort wasn’t bad at all. But, the result was the same.

Final thought #2: Sure, we could’ve won by 8-10 points if our shot was falling in the second half. But, we also could’ve lost by eight or 10 if our first half shooting hadn’t been so great.

It’s gonna get late early for the Dawgs if they can’t get up off the mat for a win on Saturday.