I hope you didn’t get up early for this.

I sincerely hope you didn’t set your alarm clock, enjoy a promising bowl of cereal and anticipate a big win on the road.

If you’re lucky, you were snug in your beds with dreams of top-25 rankings and NCAA Tournament bids dancing in your heads.

If you slept in, you started the weekend right. You avoided having to endure another embarrassing performance on the road; one you could chalk right up there with all those other sad efforts.

Arizona raced to an early lead and knew what to do with it. You could trust there would be no comeback attempt — not after an uninspired first half that was harder to watch than The O.C.

I guess that would make the second half as bad as Kazaam.

And who’d ever thought I’d say this: Artem Wallace was the shining star for the Dawgs — leading them with 12 points. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Remember when the 20-point loss at Gonzaga seemed as bad as it could get? Add 10 more points and you have the 30-point loss against the Wildcats on Saturday, the worst defeat of the season — which is saying something these days.

Losses are one thing, but it is becoming rare to see the Dawgs even compete. They can’t even make a game of it.

Not hard to see why it is becoming routine for the Huskies to become acquainted with the end of the opponents’ bench.

Here are some of the players Washington has played against in some of the biggest road games of the year: Jordan Mast, Mustafa Abdul-Hamid, Nikola Dragovic, Arlen Plaister and David Bagga.

Who? Exactly.

The opportunities for the Huskies to make a name for themselves keep slipping away. The reputation of previous success can only carry one so far.

Sure, Saturday’s debacle can’t be criticized as a bad loss on the schedule. Losing to a ranked team and preseason national championship contender on the road is not out of the ordinary for any team.

But if this team is going to stray from the ordinary it needs to earn a head-turning victory. Try to find a signature win so far this season. Northern Iowa — if you even want to go there — is fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference and far from a tournament team.

Even wins over LSU (who sits one game from last in the SEC) and Oregon (sans Pac-10 Player of the Year Aaron Brooks have glaring asterisks aside their “quality win” status).

I’ll give it to you straight. Now 4-7 in the Pac-10, Washington at a minimum must finish the season winning five of its past seven conference games.

With a .500 league record, the Huskies will also have to compete down to the final play against Pittsburgh on national television and probably reach the finals in the Pac-10 Tournament.

The UW’s margin for error is slimmer than the Olson twins.

So, what now?

This week, the Huskies host the Bay Area schools. If Washington doesn’t win both it will likely be time to put all your chips in the lottery of the Pac-10 Tournament.

We are in desperate times and these week’s games are a must.

But until then, turn your alarm clocks off. Don’t lose any more sleep than you have to.

Reach columnist Joshua Mayers at sports@thedaily.washington.edu.