Ellington

This wasn’t the expected start for Washington basketball.

While the UW men, predicted to finish second in the Pac-10, continued to struggle this weekend at the Arizona schools, the women did the exact opposite by completing a weekend home sweep of Arizona and Arizona State with a 69-59 comeback win over the Wildcats Saturday.

It didn’t look good with just 10 minutes remaining as Arizona turned a 28-28 halftime score into a 48-40 advantage. In a similar scenario last year, the Huskies more than often folded and couldn’t find a way to win.

But for the Huskies (8-6, 3-1 Pac-10), who were predicted to finish last in this season’s Pac-10, that wasn’t the case Saturday afternoon.

With their team down by eight points, sophomore Kristi Kingma and senior Laura McLellan led a 16-2 momentum-swinging run that brought the crowd of 3,957 to its feet on numerous occasions.

Kingma, who finished with a career-high 25 points, was active the entire game on both offense and defense in her best performance this season. The sophomore stole an inbounds pass to bring the Huskies within three and capped off the run with a dagger 3-pointer from the corner with five minutes remaining to put the Huskies up 58-50.

McLellan was just as important, as the senior had a flurry of post moves that stifled the Arizona defense. She scored all 15 of her points in the second half and provided an enormous boost on the defensive end. During the comeback, McLellan had a ferocious block that sent Wildcat guard Davellyn Whyte to the floor and drew an offensive foul that energized the entire Washington team.

“I think it was just getting my first shot to fall and taking a charge,” McLellan said. “Those things really pump you up. Seeing your teammates get excited after taking a charge and after an and-one, you feel like you can do anything.”

The win proved that senior Sami Whitcomb doesn’t have to be on the top of her game for the Huskies to win. Whitcomb, who leads the team with 13.4 points per game, struggled Saturday and finished with nine points on 2-for-9 shooting.

“We’re operating on all cylinders, and we’ve got a lot of balanced scoring,” head coach Tia Jackson said.

For the Huskies, defense was once again a huge part of the win. Arizona (7-7, 1-3) shot 29.5 percent from the field and just 23.3 percent in the second half. Wildcat leading scorer Ify Ibekwe was held to just 5-17 shooting with McLellan hounding her the entire second half. Jackson mixed up the defensive schemes, and the Wildcats couldn’t find a rhythm in the last 20 minutes.

The Husky offense wasn’t much better than Arizona’s, as they finished 41 percent from the field. The defense was, therefore, that much more important.

“A lot of credit goes to the defense,” Jackson said. “We couldn’t make a basket, so our defense really created opportunities for us.”

On the heels of their win Thursday against Arizona State (9-6, 1-3), the women once again surprised many by completing the sweep Saturday. The Huskies have three Pac-10 wins this season and have already matched their conference wins from last year.

But to the players and coaches, it’s not a surprise.

“I’m not surprised at all,” McLellan said. “Being picked to finish 10th in the conference is kind of insulting, and it makes you want to work that much harder. Even from the beginning of this season, we’ve improved so much, and I think we’re really going to shock some people with where we finish.”

Even Arizona coach Niya Butts thinks that the Husky success isn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“In so many cases, it’s not real surprising at all,” Butts said of the Huskies’ season thus far. “I think [in the Pac-10] outside of Stanford, it’s anybody’s basketball game. Anybody can beat anybody in this league, and I think it makes for good basketball.”

Husky fans can finally be excited for the women’s program, which was in the cellar of the Pac-10 last year. The energy in Hec Edmunson Pavillion Saturday was electric, something that hasn’t happened during a women’s basketball game in a while.

“I remember coming to these games growing up, and that was the atmosphere,” Kingma said of Saturday’s game. “It’s a great atmosphere, and I think we have one of the best home crowds that I’ve [seen] since I’ve been here. The fans were fired up, we were fired up, and we were just ready to take it at them.”

Reach Sports Editor Taylor Soper at sports@dailyuw.com.