Huskies face Gonzaga for first time since 2006-07 in first round of Battle 4 Atlantis

The Washington men’s basketball team leapt and bounced and dunked its way past a pair of overmatched nonconference opponents last week.

The Huskies scored 204 points in two games, won by margins of 33 and 37 points, and looked like the fresh, athletic bunch of players that coach Lorenzo Romar said they would be.

But games against Mount St. Mary’s and Pennsylvania can only reveal so much of a team’s true identity. Washington’s next venture will tell far more.

The Huskies don’t renew their annual home-and-home series with the Gonzaga Bulldogs until next season, but they will face each other on Wednesday morning in the Bahamas, on Paradise Island, in the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.

Each team is guaranteed three games. The Huskies will face either Texas or Texas A&M in the second round, in addition to one more game against one of the four other teams in the field — Connecticut, Michigan, Charlotte or Syracuse.

But the highlight for many in-state basketball fans will be Wednesday’s game against No. 10 Gonzaga. The teams haven’t met since the 2006-07 season, after which the annual series was discontinued.

Speculation varied about why the teams stopped playing each other. It has been reported that it was Gonzaga coach Mark Few who turned in former Huskies assistant Cameron Dollar for violating NCAA rules while recruiting Josh Heytvelt, who wound up signing with Gonzaga.

Many believe that dispute, and a corresponding deterioration of the relationship between the programs, led to UW’s decision to halt the series.

A proposal by UW in October 2009 to resume the series as an annual game at KeyArena gained no traction after Few said publicly that the odds of Gonzaga agreeing to such an arrangement were “about the same as Bigfoot having my baby.”

The programs apparently reconciled, reaching an agreement last year to play a four-year, home-and-home series beginning in 2016-17.

It’s what local hoops fans have wanted to see for nearly a decade. On Wednesday, they can see the precursor.

“If you’re a fan of the state of Washington basketball situation, it’s kind of a bonus,” Romar said. “Maybe we get to play a little early before we start it, but for me, it kind of feels the same way. We play in a field like this, you don’t know who you’re going to play. We knew we were going to play a good opponent, and it happens to be a good one in Gonzaga, so I’m not upset.”

Impressive as they’ve been in winning their first three games, the young Huskies could probably use the extra year to prepare for their reunion with their nationally ranked cross-state rivals. Gonzaga remains a West Coast Conference power, and the Bulldogs are coming off an Elite 8 appearance.

They return one of the NCAA’s most imposing frontcourts — preseason All-American forward Kyle Wiltjer, who is 6-10, and 7-foot-1 center Przemek Karnowski start, with 6-11 sophomore Domantas Sabonis coming off the bench — though their starting backcourt is less seasoned.

“We have to go out and play Husky basketball,” Romar said. “Obviously, they’re huge. Their front line is huge. Probably the biggest front line in the country, one of the best front lines in the country. We feel we have good quickness and some guys that aren’t going to back down.”

UW guard Dejounte Murray, a freshman who was recruited by Gonzaga, said he’s glad to see the teams play each other again.

“Growing up, I used to watch this game,” Murray said, “and I know how big the rivalry is. So it’s just a good feeling that I’m going to be playing in the game, so I’m looking forward to it.”

At a news conference Tuesday in the Bahamas, senior guard Andrew Andrews said he views Gonzaga as “another opponent. Although it is Gonzaga — I know it’s a big rivalry — if you look at it as bigger than what it is, we’ll kind of get carried away and come out not playing how we’re supposed to play. So I think if we just look at it as a regular game, just another opponent in the way, then we’ll come out with our same focus, try to prepare the best and play a good game.”

This story was originally published November 24, 2015 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Huskies face Gonzaga for first time since 2006-07 in first round of Battle 4 Atlantis."