Mike Hopkins credits Washington's fight in Arizona loss

Every team wants to win in every opportunity where they take the floor. For Washington, though, good just wasn’t good enough to take their last one in Tucson this weekend according to Mike Hopkins.

Hopkins spoke about his team’s effort with the media following their 91-75 loss at Arizona on Saturday. He noted how they did a good job although being down, and down by double digits, for the vast majority of the game. That’s why he was proud of the Huskies for getting it back to nine with a chance at less with under 10 to go.

“We did, we cut it to nine,” recalled Hopkins. “We had a shot to cut it to six.”

Unfortunately, from there, Washington didn’t get the stops that were necessary to truly come back. Hopkins felt like they did so much defensively to just even give themselves an opportunity. They then lost it as soon as they earned it based on how they let go of it on that end late.

“You know, it happens. When you play, you almost have to play perfect,” Hopkins said. “We were holding them to 30% on the defensive end for a long period of time. Our goal was to hold them under 80 points. They had 72 with 5:36 left. We felt like, gosh, you know?”

“A lot of guys, they let bad offense affect their defense,” said Hopkins. “A rebound here, a Caleb Love three there.”

Washington was down as much as 21 in the first half and by 17 heading into the locker room at the break. That then bloomed to the Wildcats’ largest lead of 23 before the first media timeout of the second half.

However, from there, the Huskies went on a 22-8 run over the next 5:51. They made eight of 10 shots from the field, including all four three-pointers, while Arizona still hadn’t cracked 70.

Even so, over the final 8:05, the then top-five home team opened it back up enough to fully pull away. It wasn’t a complete avalanche but they closed the game with a 22-15 advantage. That pushed it back to as much as 19 and the eventual final margin of 16 over the Huskies inside the McKale Center.

Close just isn’t close enough in some games, especially after digging yourself in a hole. That ended up being the case for Washington as they fell to 15-13 with the defeat.

“Just couldn’t get over the hump,” said Hopkins.