Huskies — and their 2-3 zone defense — have Tommy Lloyd's full attention ahead of Thursday's game

Because Washington still runs a unique and sometimes troublesome 2-3 zone defense that Huskies coach Mike Hopkins brought over from Syracuse, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd is applying a certain philosophy to the Huskies’ Thursday visit to McKale Center.

“Anytime you play a Washington, a Syracuse, anything like that, I don’t care what their record is. I don’t care what the game was before,” Lloyd said on his weekly radio show Monday. “They have your full attention because they’re doing something that no one else has done to you all year.”

In that case, then, the Wildcats might not want to look at what the Huskies are up to these days.

Washington will enter McKale Center Thursday coming off three straight double-digit homecourt losses, to Auburn (84-61), USC (80-67) and UCLA (74-49). The Huskies are 9-6 overall and just 1-3 in Pac-12 play.

The loss to UCLA, coming two days after the Bruins beat Washington State by just a point, may have been particularly dispiriting to the Huskies, who shot just 34.5% from the field and scored their fewest points in three years. They hit just 1 of 14 3-pointers in the first half ... and 1 of 11 in the second.

“It’s unfortunate,” guard Cole Bajema said afterward, according to the Seattle Times. “Obviously, we didn’t shoot well. You’re not going to beat a lot of teams shooting 2 for 25 from 3.”

Nope. ASU tried a similar “tactic” last Saturday in Tempe, shooting just 3 of 27 from 3-point range in UA’s 69-60 win, negating the fact that it held Arizona to its second-lowest scoring total of the season.

But while ASU has put up one of the Pac-12’s best defenses so far this season, the Huskies are statistically mediocre, despite their 2-3 zone. Washington picked up shot-blocking center Braxton Meah (Fresno State) via the transfer portal and is holding opponents to just 28.5% from 3-point range. But UW still allows opponents to shoot 50.4% from inside the arc, ranking just 193rd nationally in 2-point percentage defense.

Also, Washington opponents turn the ball over on 19.6% of possessions, but that only ranks 131st nationally in defensive turnover percentage.

But Hopkins said after the UCLA game that the Huskies played tougher, at least, and Lloyd said their commitment defensively makes a difference.

“You may face zone a few possessions here and there with teams that don’t have much conviction in it — Washington has conviction in it,” Lloyd said. “They hang with it and obviously they know how to coach and teach it really well and they have all the tricks of the trade in it.”

The Huskies are facing the possibility of a 1-5 start in Pac-12 play if they lose to both UA and ASU this week. Hopkins said he tried to keep things in perspective with his players after the UCLA game.

“Last year on Jan. 3 we were 5-6,” Hopkins said. “It’s a long season. Long road. You just got to get better every day. This team has been resilient. They’re tough. We will work harder and get better for sure.”

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Cougs are believers

Picked to finish eighth in the Pac-12, one spot ahead of the Huskies, Washington State brings an even worse record (6-9) into the ASU-UA road swing, though the Cougars lost just 67-66 to UCLA and then beat USC 81-71 on Sunday to snap a four-game losing streak.

“I’ve felt good about our guys — after the UCLA game, they would have every reason to come out flat and dejected,” WSU coach Kyle Smith said Tuesday on his weekly media conference. “They didn’t and they haven’t this year.

“We’ve talked about if we’d held on against UCLA, would we had come out and played as well against USC? You never know. But it certainly gave us a little confidence, a little belief and we needed it.”

Veesaar ‘getting better’

UA freshman big man Henri Veesaar hasn’t turned the ball over since the Wildcats’ first game of the Maui Invitational, a streak of 10 straight games.

Considering the ball movement required of even post players in the UA offense, that might be pretty noteworthy, the way Lloyd talked about it Monday. But there’s also those stats kept behind the scenes.

“He did have a travel in practice today, so that’s in my mind for sure,” Lloyd said Monday evening. “But he’s getting better, he’s practicing better and he’s working out better. It’s only a matter of time before he puts together a four-or-five-game stretch where he’s playing at a pretty high level.

“I was really comfortable with him out on the floor in a fistfight type of game (at ASU), which is huge progress for him. Let’s hope he can continue to grow because we definitely need him to be an impact player.”