Huskies fall to Valparaiso in first round of CBI

This wasn’t how they saw the season ending three months ago.

With CBI decals gracing the Hec Edmundson Pavilion floor in front of one of the smallest crowds of the season, Washington fell 72-71 to Valparaiso in the first round of the inaugural College Basketball Invitational March 19.

“I’m grateful we had a chance to participate, although we had a quick departure,” UW coach Lorenzo Romar said.

Though not participating would have saved Washington from a losing record, the loss gave the Huskies (16-17) their first losing season since the 2002-2003 campaign, Romar’s first season with the program.

Down to the final seconds, this game was a microcosm of everything that went wrong this year for Washington. Valparaiso took its final lead with 2:45 to play, and neither team would score the rest of the way — not that the Huskies didn’t have their chances.

Jon Brockman missed a pair of free throws with four seconds remaining that could have won the game, further fermenting UW’s season-long futility from the foul line.

“We had numerous opportunities where we could have stepped up,” Brockman said. “A lot of times in close games like that, it’s just the more mentally strong, experienced team that wins.”

Brockman was listed as questionable coming into the game, still recovering from a sprained ankle, with Romar saying that the big man wouldn’t have played if not for how close the game ended up being.

“When neither team scored too much early, we decided to give him an opportunity to see how he would look,” Romar said.

For the most part, Brockman looked just fine.

While Romar said that he lacked his usual spring, Brockman still led UW with 22 points and 12 rebounds, more or less asserting himself forcefully on the low block.

However, not even Brockman had an answer for Bryan Bouchie, Valparaiso’s unheralded post player, who posted a career-high 20 points on 9-12 shooting.

And if the loss wasn’t bad enough on its own, at least one Husky will still be feeling its effects for some time to come. Junior forward Artem Wallace went down with a serious knee injury just one minute into the game, tearing his ACL and suffering a bone contusion in the process.

Wallace will miss six to nine months, and it is questionable whether he will be available for the beginning of next season.

[Reach reporter Christian Caple at sports@thedaily.edu.]