Since starting out 5-1 in conference play with a place atop the conference standings, the young Washington Huskies men's basketball has struggled, and their NCAA Tournament hopes have gone from near lock to on the outside looking in. At this point they're not even a bubble team.

Saturday they went to Boulder to face a Colorado team they had just beat in January, installing belief theat these Huskies were destined for March Madness. However since then the Huskies have gone 2-7, with the two wins a narrow two-point win over UCLA where they almost blew a double digit lead, and an overtime home victory over Arizona State. That win against Colorado last month gave them a share of first in the Pac-12, and now are seventh in the conference with a 7-6 record in Pac-12 play.

Coming in having lost two in a row, Lorenzo Romar's men were looking to use this game as a launching pad into a run that would carry them deep into the Pac-12 tournament and hopefully a berth in the NCAA tournament. The Buffaloes however had different plans and controled the game from the start, leading by 15 with a little more than seven minutes left in the game.

Senior Andrew Andrews did his best to lead a comeback, scoring 11 of his 18 points in the final six minutes. Andrews even had a good look with five seconds left down a point, but unfortunately he could not get the shot to go down and the Huskies lost 81-80.

“If we’re talking the NCAA tournament, (then) we’ve got to finish strong,” Romar said via The Seattle Times. “We don’t have a lot of margin for error at this point.” 

Indeed, the margin for error is slim, and that's an understatement. Slim margin for errors don't usually bode well for teams with the youth that the Huskies feature on this year's squad. We see it in every sport, young talent that impresses at the beginning, but its how the perform when the competition adjusts that separates the truly great from those that are merely talented. If the Dawgs happen to not recover and miss out on the Big Dance, at the very least it will be a learning experience to hopefully make them stronger for future seasons.

Next up for the Huskies are the Cal Golden Bears. Cal comes to Seattle one spot ahead of the Huskies in the standings, therefore it will be a pivotal matchup as Washington hopes to avoid extending their losing streak.

Photo: Flickr/Dave Sizer