Washington Basketball: Keys for the Huskies to take down Utah State
By Neil Adler
Connect at a solid clip
Washington certainly hangs its hat on a suffocating zone defense that Hopkins brought with him after serving as a long-time assistant at Syracuse, but the Huskies have to put the ball in the basket if they hope to oust the Aggies. To date, Washington averages about 70 points a game, and that likely isn’t going to prove enough to conquer Utah State, which scores nearly 80 points every 40 minutes. The Huskies aren’t a stellar shooting crew, but they’re not terrible, either. Washington makes 45.3 percent of its field-goal tries, along with 69.4 percent from the charity stripe and 34.6 percent from downtown.
However, during its most-recent duel against Oregon in the Pac-12 tourney title tilt, the Huskies did not fare well. Washington connected on a mere 33.3 percent of its shots in a blow-out loss. What’s more, a week earlier in their regular-season finale, also versus the Ducks, the Huskies managed a putrid 47 points. And at home, of all places.
I recognize that Washington isn’t going to do something crazy like hit the century mark as far as its points produced against the Aggies. Because Utah State has a lot of offensive firepower and performs admirably on the defensive end, too, I believe that the Huskies will need a minimum of 75 points to achieve a positive conclusion.