Dawgman Radio: A Washington Huskies athletics podcast

Here's the post-game audio from Washington freshman guard Marcus Tsohonis, who made his first start of the season, Hameir Wright who chipped in 14 points, and UW Head Coach Mike Hopkins after UW suffered their fifth-straight loss, 87-83, to Arizona State Saturday night at Alaska Airlines Arena.

Post-Game audio from freshman sharpshooter RaeQuan Battle, who led Washington in scoring with a career-high 14 points, junior guard Nahziah Carter, and UW head coach Mike Hopkins after Washington's 75-72 last-second loss to Arizona at Alaska Airlines Arena. It's the fourth-straight loss for the Huskies, the first time that's happened in the Hopkins era.

Washington's 76-62 loss at Colorado Saturday meant the Huskies' third loss in a row, and their path toward the Pac-12 Tournament doesn't get any easier Thursday as they host Arizona (13-6, 3-3).

The Huskies never lost more than one game in a row all of last year, but this year? It's happened three times in just the last nine games. Ever since losing in Honolulu on Christmas to Houston in the Diamond Head Classic championship game, it's basically been a snowball rolling dead downhill.

And Mike Hopkins has never lost more than three games in a row since becoming Washington's head coach nearly three years ago.

"A lot of close losses definitely takes a toll on your mentally," junior forward Hameir Wright told the media on Wednesday as the Huskies prepared to host the Wildcats. "So we're getting uptight, overthinking a lot of things. So (Hopkins') message to us and having fun is just playing the game that we all know how to play."

Fun was definitely the operative word for Hopkins, as he talked about shorter practices and positivity as a couple of tactics he's currently employing while searching for answers to get the team out of this slump.

On Tuesday, 247 released its final Top247 for the 2020 recruiting class and Washington had nine players on the list. Several fell, a couple rose and two stayed the same as they were.

Why did players like Sav'ell Smalls and Sam Adams fall in the rankings as far as they did?

That is the question Husky fans are wondering after seeing the big drops for both of those local players and that's a complicated answer, but Dawgman's Kim Grinolds and Scott Eklund give their thoughts on why that happened as well as looking at why players like Ethan Garbers and Rome Odunze both had significant improvements on their overall rankings.

They also talk about the final week before National Signing Day and talk about which players are left on the board and how things could wrap up as well as the K.J. Costello rumors that are floating around that he is on campus today meeting with the Husky coaching staff.

To listen to the 31-minute podcast, click on the audio link above.

It's the final push toward the finish line of the 2020 recruiting cycle for the Washington Husky coaching staff and they have 10 visitors on campus this weekend.

Dawgman.com's Scott Eklund and Kim Grinolds go through each of the prospects that are there, including the four scholarship athletes and the six walk-on candidates. They also give a quick preview of what is in store over the next week and a half before National Letter-of-Intent day, which is on February 5, and what to look forward to with regards to the 2021 recruiting class which includes profiles of targeted prospects, something we've already started to do, recruiting lists of top prospects who are on Washington's recruiting board for each position group among other things.

To listen to the 26-minute podcast, click on the audio link above.

Remember these numbers: 4, 2, 6, 3, and 3. Those numbers represent the margins in Washington's last five losses, starting with their 75-71 loss in Honolulu to Houston in the Championship game of the Diamond Head Classic.

The Huskies are 2-4 in league play, but those four losses are by a combined 14 points. Whether it's missed shots, missed free throws, turnovers, or defensive frailty in the final five minutes, UW has suffered a little bit of everything and have found multiple ways to give games away.

"I remember Oregon State, at Oregon State our first year," Mike Hopkins recalled Tuesday as the Huskies continued their preparations for games at Utah Thursday night and at Colorado on Saturday. "We're up 13 with 7 minutes to go. We've got the best defensive player on planet Earth in Matisse Thybulle. They make 6 of their last 8 threes in Matisse's area and we ended up losing. (Stevie) Thompson ends up making a three-pointer at the buzzer or whatever it was in overtime. Did it twice to us that year. Those were the experiences, because I remember the next time we played 'em last year at Oregon State we reminded 'em. We were up the same and it was like 'don't forget!', and Matisse is like I ain't forgetting. Now Spider Man, his senses become a little bit more...that goes back to learning and understanding.

"This isn't going to do anything to a guy like Payton Pritchard next time if we get another next time. (Stanford guard) Daejon Davis, first time you get him late in the clock...now it's like we aren't going to let him. We never put anything to chance, regardless of if it's a high-level shot or no. That's part of the growing experience, that's part of the ups and downs of winning and losing. The key for the team for me is, keep believing. We're right there. Sometimes you've got to take two steps back to take a step forward. We've got to keep moving forward. We've got to keep learning, we've got to keep growing and we've got to keep competing."

Hopkins recited some staggering numbers: in the last five minutes of Pac-12 games, teams are shooting 72 percent from two and 8-11 from the three-point line.

"The numbers late, we have to pick it up, we have to be more aware," Hopkins said. "That's when we're blocking shots and we're active through 30 minutes of the game, that last five minutes when the games are on the line, that's when it needs to be elevated. That goes back to experience."

It was a huge recruiting weekend for the Washington Huskies, so it seemed to be the right time for the guys from Dawgman.com - Kim Grinolds, Chris Fetters, and Scott Eklund - to talk about it.

Earlier on Saturday, the Huskies hosted a Junior Day chock full of talent. From the 'Big Three' of Sam Huard, JT Tuimoloau, and Emeka Egbuka, to a ton of other big names on the west coast - Steven Ortiz, Caden Jumper, Josh Conerly, Will Latu, Owen Prentice, Tobias Merriweather, Jabez Tinae, Junior Alexander, Denzel Burke, Julien Simon, Jayden Wayne, Malik Agbo, Austin Terry, David Iuli, and others.

Kim and Scott were at the Oregon-Washington basketball game, so they were able to see a lot of the recruits, and also new UW Head Coach Jimmy Lake's impassioned halftime speech.

And then later Saturday night in Honolulu, four 2020 UW signees - Myles Murao, Rome Odunze, Mark Redman, and Roger Rosengarten - took part in the 2020 Polynesian Bowl at Aloha Stadium. Chris was there and gave his first-hand account of the players and not just what they did during the game but also during the week of practice. 2020 RB signee Sam Adams was also there, but he was rehabbing a recent shoulder surgery.

Fetters was also able to talk to a number of top 2021 prospects from the islands, and at least two of them - Mililani LB Wynden Ho'ohuli and Kamehameha OL Kuao Peihopa - have current UW scholarship offers. One other prospect, Campbell DB Peter Manuma, is receiving interest from the Huskies.

Four games into Pac-12 play, and Mike Hopkins has seen all he needs to see. The Washington Head Coach knows where progress needs to be made in order for the Huskies to turn their fortunes around after losing point guard Quade Green at this time last week. After losing both their Bay Area games this past weekend, the Huskies host Oregon State Thursday night at 8 pm PT (Fox Sports 1) and Oregon on Saturday at 12:45 pm PT (CBS).

Truth be told, Hopkins has targeted three key statistical areas where UW just hasn't been able to keep up, and it's not just based on the last four games. It's a trend that started at the beginning of the season, and hasn't changed all that much.

Here are the three stats Hopkins mentioned Wednesday...

Assist-to-turnover ratio: 268 out of 350 Division-1 teams.

Three-point shooting: 255 out of 350 Division-1 teams.

Three-point defense: 126 out of 350 Division-1 teams. The top Pac-12 3-point defense right now is Stanford, who currently ranks 74th.

To break it down in its simplest terms, Washington can't hold on to the ball, and when they do they can't make shots from outside. And when they are defending, they haven't done that nearly as well as they did last year.

"We've got to do a better job in those three areas," Hopkins said. "And if we can, we'll be successful. That's the bottom line."

The media also spoke with sophomore guard Jamal Bey and redshirt frosh forward Nate Roberts. Bey is one of the three players tasked with figuring out how to run the offense in a way that is similar to how things were running with Green, who was declared academically ineligible until at least the NCAA Tournament. He talked about moving into a new role and trying to move on and lead in a post-Quade world.

Even though we're just 22 days away from National Signing Day, things on the recruiting front have been a little slow, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of news to talk about.

In today's DawgmanRadio episode, Kim Grinolds and Scott Eklund cover a number of subjects, most notably, the completion of the Washington coaching staff and why they kept the coaches they did and what it means to bring in a coach like John Donovan to run the offense and why head coach Jimmy Lake tabbed Derham Cato, an offensive analyst for the Huskies the past couple of years, to become the next tight ends head coach.

Will he only be with the tight ends or will he have a larger role in shaping the overall offense?

Also, is there a chance someone like Jeff Tedford could be brought on to help as an analyst now that he's left Fresno State to take care of his health.

They also touch bases on the College Football National Championship Game from Monday night, a 42-25 win that gave LSU it's first title in over a decade as well as the optics of seeing Odell Beckham Jr. handing out cash to players following the win.

Fake money or not, it's not a good look.

Other subjects covered included Chris Fetters' trip to Hawaii to watch the Polynesian Bowl (to be played on Saturday the 18th) and where recruiting is headed over the next few weeks including what is shaping up to be a big visit weekend in less than two weeks (January 24th-26th) when upwards of 10 prospects are expected to be on campus to check out Washington and see what the program has to offer.

To listen to the 40-minute podcast, click on the audio link above.

Jimmy Lake clearly was thinking of Chris Fetters when he announced John Donovan as Washington's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Friday morning, so what better birthday gift than to announce the hiring first thing in the morning? Thank you Jimmy!

But the hire definitely came out of left field and prompted a bunch of quick research to find out more about Donovan, including his coaching past, his coaching tree, and what to make of the hire in general.

So Fetters got together with Kim Grinolds and Scott Eklund for an emergency podcast to talk about the hire, Donovan's roots in the Ralph Friedgen system at Maryland along with James Franklin, his move with Franklin to Vanderbilt and ultimately to Penn State, where Donovan was Franklin's offensive coordinator and tight ends coach for two years. He has since been working with the Jacksonville Jaguars in various offensive capacities.

What does the hire mean for Washington's offense moving forward? And does Lake have just one more hire to make - the tight ends coach - or will this move be the first in a series as the Huskies' offensive organizational chart undergoes a reconstruction?