Two weeks into conference play, only the Arizona Wildcats have allowed opponents fewer points per possession than the Washington Huskies. To say this is stunning would probably undersell the magnitude of the turnaround from where we were two weeks ago after non-conference play, when Washington had the second-worst defense of any major-conference team.

Asked about the transformation, UW coach Lorenzo Romar has pointed toward his team finally getting comfortable in the new defensive style (overloading the strong side) the coaching staff installed on the fly in late November after a series of horrendous defensive performances. This is surely at least in part the case, though it’s remarkable how little indication the Huskies gave of this learning curve before starting conference play. (Part of that may be players getting up for Pac-12 foes a tad more than Hartford.)

Additionally, Washington has started switching nearly all screens on the perimeter, a strategy that takes advantage of the team’s size at guard and quickness at forward. The Huskies rarely create a major mismatch by switching, and doing so has allowed them to cut down on the penetration that broke down the defense time and again in November and December.

Beyond all that, Washington has also gotten an enormous dose of good luck in opponent shooting. In last Wednesday’s win, Utah didn’t make a 3-pointer until the final 30 seconds of what was a close game ultimately decided by two points (on, fittingly, a missed 3). Colorado followed that up with another 1-of-12 performance on Sunday. Overall, the four teams the Huskies have faced have shot 6-of-50 (12.0 percent) from beyond the arc.

That, obviously, cannot continue. As Ken Pomeroy’s research has documented, defenses have very little control over the percentage their opponents shoot from 3-point range over entire seasons, let alone four-game stretches.

Credit Romar for understanding that has team has gotten some breaks.

“We’ve been very fortunate in that teams are shooting like 13 percent from the 3 in conference games against us,” Romar told Christian Caple of The News Tribune. “Time will tell if that has anything to do with what we’re doing defensively. We haven’t been in as many rotation situations with this type of defense as we have been in the past. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not.”

What defenses can control is how many 3s their opponents shoot, and Washington has done well there by avoiding rotations. They rank second from the bottom in terms of the percentage of shots by opponents from 3-point range in conference play and have allowed opponents the lowest assist rate, a good indicator of staying at home defensively and making teams beat defenders 1-on-1.

Still, the Husky defense is bound to regress as opponents make more of their 3s. If you need proof of that, look no further than last season, when I wrote a post about UW’s 4-0 start to Pac-12 play that was eerily similar to this one in every regard. The undefeated start was built on holding opponents to 18.9 percent 3-point shooting. The rest of the conference season, Washington opponents shot 35.7 percent, slightly better than the conference average (33.8 percent). Predictably, the UW defense regressed, and the Huskies finished Pac-12 play at 9-9.

I also introduced the concept of defensive rating adjusted for 3-point luck in last year’s column. Since Caple put together the season 3-point percentage of every player to attempt a 3-pointer against the Huskies in conference play, we can use that and their attempts to show that they should have made about 17 of their 50 attempts, rather than their actual six. Add 33 points to the Huskies’ first four games and their defensive efficiency drops to 104.5 points per 100 possessions, good for seventh in the Pac-12 — slightly below average. And instead of having outscored opponents by 21 points, UW would be -12 through four games.

That’s still not bad for a team projected to finish last in the conference two weeks ago, but the Huskies probably aren’t the threat their performance over the first four games — especially at the defensive end — would indicate.

The UW men’s basketball team kicks off the Pac-12 season tonight in Tempe against Arizona State, and based on the team’s performance in non-conference play, it could be a long season ahead.

While the Huskies finished 8-5 in November and December and won nearly all of the games they should have — a home loss to UC Irvine being the exception — they struggled so much to beat lesser foes and were so outmatched against quality ones that they have dropped in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings from No. 49 entering the season to No. 150 today — last in the Pac-12. When Pomeroy recently simulated the conference schedule a thousand times, Washington was the only Pac-12 team never to win the title.

Disastrous Defense

The Huskies have actually met expectations on offense, where their exceptionally accurate free throw shooting (77.4 percent, good for ninth in the country) and relatively low turnover rate (ranked 48th, an improvement from 164th last season) have led them to the NCAA’s 55th-best offense on a per-possession basis, adjusted for quality of opposition. That’s better than Washington managed two years ago with future first-round picks Terrence Ross and Tony Wroten (62nd).

Unfortunately, any offensive success has more than been offset by the Huskies’ inability to stop anybody. By the same measure of points allowed per possession, adjusted for opposition, the Huskies rank 286th in the nation, far and away their worst performance under Lorenzo Romar. Previously, Romar’s worst defense on Montlake was the 2003-04 NCAA tournament team, which finished No. 154. Only one power-conference team has been worse on defense than Washington — Boston College (No. 300), which handed the Huskies an 89-78 loss at Madison Square Garden in a November matchup that featured few stops by either side.

Surprisingly, Washington’s 3-point defense has actually been decent. The Huskies are allowing fewer attempts beyond the arc than average, the factor over which defenses have the most control, and opponents are shooting a below-average 34.8 percent from downtown. But as soon as they step inside the arc, other teams have converted a ghastly 54.8 percent of their 2-point attempts, putting Washington 320th of the 351 Division I teams.

Digging deeper, the problem is at the rim, where the Huskies are both allowing too many attempts (37.3 percent of all shots by opponents have come there, per Hoop-Math.com) and giving up makes more than 70 percent of the time. Washington’s inability to keep opponents out of the paint has been exacerbated by a lack of rim protection, leaving the Huskies vulnerable inside.

It’s hardly surprising that Washington would struggle to defend the rim after Jernard Jarreau, the team’s best shot blocker, was lost to a ruptured ACL in the season opener. But the magnitude of the problem has been inexcusable. The Huskies are so bad defensively that they may be better off giving up on man-to-man defense and playing strictly zone.

After getting torched by Indiana and BC in New York, the UW coaching staff made defensive adjustments with the idea of overloading the strong side of the floor and having more players in position to help. This scheme has avoided those kind of nightmare performances, and in fact the Huskies have held opponents below their season-long adjusted offensive rating four times in the last six games. But Washington has still been below average defensively in that span because of poor efforts against UConn and Hartford.

Reasons for Optimism?

Besides Jarreau, the Huskies played most of their non-conference schedule without forward Desmond Simmons, who returned for the final three games after knee surgery. After shaking off the rust, Simmons scored 11 points in 14 minutes against Hartford, and while he’s not a rim protector, his size and rebounding will help on defense.

Most importantly, a healthy Simmons gives Romar enough depth up front to shorten his rotation. Backup center Gilles Dierickx, thrust into the rotation by the injuries, proved overmatched in his limited playing time. According to the plus-minus data tracked by StatSheet.com, Washington has been outscored by 41 points in Dierickx’s 53 minutes of action. (Not counting the UConn game, for which plus-minus is not available.) The Huskies have also been outscored with Shawn Kemp, Jr. (-10) and Darin Johnson (-5) on the floor, and all three players have seen their minutes cut recently.

The biggest plus-minus standout in non-conference play was forward Mike Anderson, who stepped into Jarreau’s spot in the starting lineup. While Anderson is undersized for the frontcourt at 6-6, his rebounding prowess has kept the Huskies effective on the glass, the one strength of their defense. And his outside shooting has spaced the floor well on offense. Washington has outscored opponents by 8.1 points per 40 minutes with Anderson on the floor, so Romar will want to continue getting Anderson minutes at both forward positions even as Simmons plays more.

Another player to watch is freshman point guard Jahmel Taylor, who has gone from redshirt candidate to part of the rotation. In a tiny sample, the Huskies have outscored opponents by 12.6 points per 40 minutes with Taylor on the floor. His pressure on the ball has helped Washington’s perimeter defense.

The problem is, even if the Huskies can put together a better rotation for conference play, they’ll have to improve to match the rest of the Pac-12, which now looks deeper than expected this season. Utah went 11-1, and though that’s partially a product of a weak non-conference slate, the Utes looked dangerous in beating BYU at home and losing narrowly at Boise State. USC got impressive non-conference wins at Dayton and against Xavier on a neutral court.

The improvement by those two schools has left the Pac-12 with three teams outside the Pomeroy top 100 — Oregon State (getting star forward Eric Moreland back from suspension for the conference schedule), Washington State and UW. So at the moment, it looks like the Evergreen State’s two teams could be battling each other to avoid the Pac-12 cellar.