Even Washington coach Mike Hopkins was finding comfort from everybody’s favorite fictional sports coach.
“We’ve got a good, resilient group with experience,” Hopkins said after Monday’s 95-79 loss at No. 8 Arizona, in which the Huskies were in the game until the final minutes.
“What does Ted Lasso say? You’ve got to have a mind like a goldfish and a 10-second memory. Learn from it and move forward.”
The Huskies (5-6 overall, 0-1 Pac-12) will try to do that when they play Thursday night at Salt Lake City against Utah (8-6, 1-3).
Washington’s Terrell Brown Jr. returned to Tucson, Ariz., where he played last season before transferring back to play for his hometown Huskies, and scored a game-high 28 points on 10-of-22 shooting, with eight rebounds, six assists and five steals.
Brown leads the Pac-12 in scoring with 22.0 points per game.
“Terrell Brown was spectacular,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said. “That’s the first time I’ve really seen him play and scouted him. He gets a ton of credit for coming in here and (scoring 28 on) his old team.”
The Huskies, who forced 21 turnovers, were within 72-67 with 7:48 left before Arizona went on a late run.
The Huskies can take solace in the fact they played well on the road against a top 10 team after their conference opener was postponed three different times going back to Dec. 2.
The Utes are the lone Pac-12 program that hasn’t had a game postponed because of COVID-19 concerns.
They are 6-1 at home this season, including a conference victory against California. Their three Pac-12 losses have all come on the road, including last week’s defeats at Oregon State (88-76) and Oregon (79-66).
“I mean, it is a long season,” said Utes center Branden Carlson, who had a team-high 15 points and six rebounds against the Ducks. “We got a lot of games still to play. We just gotta keep a positive attitude.
“We know there are things we need to fix. We can’t just come in feeling good each day. We gotta come in ready to work on things to improve and become the team that we want to be.”
–Field Level Media
