University of Washington Official Athletic Site - Men's Basketball
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Washington's 1998 schedule features 16 games against 1997 postseason competitors, including 13 versus eight opponents who competed in the NCAA Tournament. The Huskies play national champion Arizona twice along with meetings against Sweet Sixteen qualifiers California, Stanford and UCLA. The non-conference slate has games against NCAA competitors Old Dominion, St. Mary's and South Alabama along with a matchup with NIT qualifier Oklahoma State.
All of the Huskies' 11 defeats last season came against teams that participated in postseason play. Nine UW losses were to NCAA teams and two to NIT-bound opponents. Washington defeated NCAA Tournament teams Arizona, Stanford and USC along with NIT competitor Oregon. The Huskies had a 3-5 record against ranked opponents last season, the first time since 1984 they beat more than two ranked foes. Washington was 1-2 against top-10 ranked teams.
Shattered fragments of the backboard were all that remained after Husky junior Todd MacCulloch dunked the ball during a high school contest. He obliterated the backboard during 1994 while playing for Shaftesbury High School in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Head coach Bob Bender is the only indi- vidual to play in NCAA championship games for two different teams. Bender played as a freshman on Indiana's undefeated 1976 squad and was a sophomore point guard on the 1978 Duke runner-up team. He was scoreless for Indiana in the Hoosiers' 1976 title game against Michigan and tallied seven points in 17 minutes for Duke in the 1978 championship loss to Kentucky. The only other individual to play for two different teams in a Final Four is Steve Krafcisin who played in 1977 for North Carolina and 1980 for Iowa. Krafcisin's UNC squad lost to Marquette in the 1977 championship game, but his Iowa team did not make the final.
It happened only once before. Washington defeated the eventual national champion last year when it downed Arizona 92-88 on Feb. 2 in Seattle. The only other Husky triumph over a team that would go on to win the NCAA crown was a 103-81 win over UCLA on Feb. 22, 1975. That was legendary Coach John Wooden's last defeat as UCLA won eight more games and his 10th title.
No school has won more games in a single arena than have the Huskies. Washington has amassed 723 victories at home in Edmundson Pavilion since the arena opened in 1927. A 93-76 victory over Jackson State on Dec. 4, 1995 was the 700th for the Huskies at Edmundson Pavilion.
Giant Todd MacCulloch bears a physical resemblance to Bryant "Big Country" Reeves, an NBA standout with Vancouver. While working as a volunteer at the 1995 Final Four in Seattle, MacCulloch was frequently mistaken for the former Oklahoma State star whose Cowboys played in the NCAA semifinals. The 7-foot, 280-pound MacCulloch, who resembles Reeves' 7-0, 292 frame, was besieged by autograph requests from spectators at the Kingdome in April of 1995. MacCulloch has begun to resemble Reeves on the court as well.
Todd MacCulloch led the nation in field goal shooting in 1997 with a 67.6-percent accuracy. He bettered his own previous school record of 67.5-percent established during his freshman campaign. MacCulloch was named to the Playboy magazine All-America Team.
Only UCLA has had more first-team All- Pacific-10 Conference selections than Washington. The Huskies have 76 all-conference players while UCLA leads with 93.
No 7-footers had played for Washington over an eight-year span since Chris Welp left as the school's all-time scoring leader in 1987. The current Husky roster includes two such players, the first tandem of 7-footers at the UW in 12 years, since Welp and Flosi Sigurdsson teamed up in 1984 and 1985. Todd MacCulloch and Patrick Femerling started together twice during the 1995-96 season, the first pair of 7-footers ever to start simultaneously for the Huskies.
Both Oregon and Washington have state prep players of the year on the current Washington roster. Junior Donald Watts was Washington state's top prep in 1995 while at Lake Washington High School. Red-shirt freshman Thalo Green was the 1996 Oregon Player of the Year as a forward from state champion South Salem High School. Joining the team this year are freshmen Michael Johnson and Dan Dickau who garnered top prep honors in Washington for their classifications. Johnson hails from Seattle's Ballard High School and Dickau graduated from Prairie High School in Vancouver.
An all-time total of 1,366 victories ranks Washington No. 13 among all NCAA Division I schools.
Since Bob Bender arrived, the Huskies have defeated every Pac-10 team except UCLA. Every other conference foe has been defeated at least twice since Washington's last win over UCLA in 1993.
Keeping the record keeper busy, the Hus- kies had a stellar statistical season in 1997. The 17 victories were the most since 1987 while the winning percentage of 60.7 (17-11 record) was the finest since 1986. The rebound differential of + 6.2 was the highest since 1985 and the scoring margin of + 2.9 was Washington's best since 1987. Jamie Booker set the career steals record of 195 and Todd MacCulloch set the single-season field goal shooting mark of 67.6 percent. On the negative side of the ledger, the Huskies averaged a Pac-10 high 20.6 turnovers per game, the most in school history.
Edmundson Pavilion has provided an ex- cellent homecourt advantage for the Huskies throughout its 69-year history. Washington boasts an outstanding 723-259 record at the venerable arena, a 74% winning clip.
The shooting accuracy last year was im- pressive for Washington whose improvement from the previous season was the seventh-best in the nation. The Huskies collectively converted 48.3-percent of their field goal attempts in 1997, the best mark since 1989. That was a 4.72-percent increase from the 1996 mark of 43.6%.
Bob Bender has been a participant in five NCAA Final Fours. He played on 1976 (Indiana) and 1978 (Duke) Final Four teams and was an assistant coach at Duke for the 1986, 1988 and 1989 Final Fours.
Attendance at Husky basketball games is escalating. The 1995 season averaged 5,204 fans. In 1996, Washington averaged 6,426 spectators at Edmundson Pavilion during Pac-10 play. In 1997 the Huskies averaged 5,893 spectators and 6,555 against Pac-10 teams, the highest totals since 1986.
Longest NCAA Tournament drought among Pacific-10 Conference schools? It is Washington. The Huskies are the only conference team that hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament in the 1990s, last earning an invitation to the "Big Dance" in 1986. A good omen for the Huskies comes in the form of 7-foot-1 junior Patrick Femerling from Germany. The last time Washington reached the NCAAs, 7-foot German Chris Welp was starting at center.
Last season, Mark Sanford earned his second straight All-Pac-10 team award to become the first two-time Washington honoree since Eldridge Recasner was a three-time selection from 1988 to 1990. Sanford left school after his junior season and was the second pick in the second round of the 1997 NBA Draft. He was the 30th selection overall by the Miami Heat, the fifth-highest spot ever by a Husky in the draft.
