Despite their 17-6 record (8-3 in the Pac-10 conference), the University of Washington men have what too often could be called a middlin’ basketball team, but not in the typical sense. It’s a middlin’ contingent because the team often plays best after a game is 10 minutes old and stops playing at top form with 10 minutes left. If the Dawgs could somehow convince national pollsters to judge them just on their middle 20 minutes, they’d probably be a top-10-caliber outfit instead of a club still struggling to win a position in the NCAA tournament.

Starting the recent swing through the Bay Area the Huskies were somewhat less than middlin’. They basically gave up the Thursday (Feb. 5) game with about 17 minutes left to play, seeming to be gazing from afar during that second-half span as Cal players outscored them 50-26, winning 86-71. The Dawgs had precisely four field goals during the last 16:48, four more than star senior Jon Brockman had for the night.

Team personnel said they were determined to stand tall after the collapse at Cal, no small task since Husky men hadn’t won at Stanford since the first Clinton inauguration. They played the initial 10 minutes in, uh, middlin’ form, falling behind 18-15, and watching Stanford pour in 12 straight before the Dawgs clawed back to a 35-34 intermission lead. that surge was largely owing to the 13 points of spotty junior forward Quincy Pondexter and the typical big UW edge in rebounding. Also typical was the Huskies’ shaky play inside the three-point arc. All season Justin Dentmon has been the only Dawg with a consistent soft touch from 12 feet or closer but the senior guard had foul trouble and had to sit for much of the second half. His teammates reacted with a cacophony of clanging short shots and an array of wayward lay-ups.

The second half looked to belong to the Dawgs, with Stanford missing shots and letting the visitors slip out to a 16-point lead at the 10-minute mark. Would the Huskies find a way to finish strong or lapse as they had in Berkeley? A minute later Stanford had pulled to within eight. At 5:03 they came within five, four a minute later, then three with 2:16 left. That was as close as it got. When Venoy Overton drove and flipped in a lay-up at 40 seconds the Dawgs went ahead by nine, winning 75-69. Overton, a non-starter, was the “catalyst” on offense, coach Lorenzo Romar said after the game.

Romar noted that the Dawgs play five of their remaining seven regular-season games in Seattle, then stating the obvious: “You do like going into a situation where you’re playing at home.” The Huskies figure to sweep the visiting Oregon schools Feb. 12 and 14. The highlight of the visits may not even be basketball so much as the appearance Thursday of the Oregon State coach Craig Robinson, whose brother-in-law is the guy who wasn’t John McCain in the recent presidential race.

Perhaps the Huskies are to be admired for coming home 2-2 from a half-month road swing. But blown endgames against Arizona (Jan. 29) and Cal don’t bode well for a team that obviously has to play all postseason contests on the road. The telling test for Romar’s occasionally impressive, often well-balanced attack will come Feb. 19 and 21, when the Dawgs play their last regular-season away games. A split with UCLA and USC in Los Angeles would leave them in good position for the postseason. But it also would reinforce the middlin’ nature of a team that needs to play hard for 40 minutes if the Huskies hope to realize their potential.