Loss leaves Huskies wondering

For 39 minutes and 58 seconds of last night's game Washington held all the cards against a grossly inadequate Stanford team. At that point the Huskies had a three-point lead thanks to two Brandon Roy free throws and had the game all but won with two seconds remaining.

Yet, as has happened several times in their rocky 5-4 start to Pac-10 play, the Huskies failed to close.

Inexplicably, freshman Justin Dentmon fouled Stanford's Chris Hernandez, who was trying to heave a desperation three in the waning tenths of a second. The foul sent the senior to the line for three shots, and he hit them all.

After that, the UW might as well have packed up and gone home.

The overtime session would not have ended any differently. In a game that had been all Washington, Stanford took the forefront in OT, outscoring the No. 9 Huskies 13-4 to win 76-67.

While the loss may not be the end of the world for Coach Romar and his squad, it ought to leave a foul taste in the mouths of the players and coaches.

Having already taken a beating against Cal earlier in the week, Washington needed to make a statement against the woeful Cardinal. Yes, the same Cardinal that had lost to the likes of UC Davis, UC Irvine and Montana.

The Dawgs were out for blood. And they were so close to tasting it.

Brandon Roy had another big game and Jamaal Williams seemed to reestablish himself inside against some bigger opposition. Both should definitely be seen as pluses going into the stretch-run of the season.

But senior Bobby Jones struggled mightily against the Cardinal. Jones had an abnormally bad shooting night. He went just 1-11 from the field and scored four points. The trip through Berkeley and Stanford was not kind to the forward who had a measly 12 points combined in both games.

The major factor that seems to drive this team is the play of its leaders. Only when all three are on the same page does Washington show its true colors.

Last night was not one of those times.

The role players also struggled Sunday night. Except for Jon Brockman, who continued to dazzle with 11 points and eight boards, the other players who were expected to make an impact -- Justin Dentmon, Ryan Appleby, Joel Smith and Mike Jensen -- failed to make their presence known. The four combined for 12 points and turned it over five times.

The awful loss leaves Washington in an interesting predicament. At 5-4 in conference, the Huskies are in fifth place and have lost to three of the conference's top four teams: Arizona, Cal and Stanford.

In order to get back to the top, Washington has no other choice than to run the table during the stretch of conference play, and to do that some serious problems will need to be addressed.

Closing out games seems like a good place to start.