Teammates rally behind Dentmon

When Justin Dentmon was 7 years old, Chris Webber called the timeout heard round the basketball world.

Or more precisely, he called the timeout his Michigan Wolverines didn't have, giving North Carolina two free throws with a two-point lead, all but killing the Fab Five's chance at win in the NCAA men's title game.

And while Dentmon's self-described "dumb foul" that helped Stanford to an inexplicable overtime win over the Huskies on Sunday doesn't come close to Webber's timeout on the what-was-he-thinking? scale, Washington coach Lorenzo Romar felt compelled to bring it up Tuesday.

Not for the purpose of making his freshman point guard feel worse, but to remind everyone that even a future NBA All-Star makes mistakes.

"Chris Webber is an accomplished NBA player and he called the timeout," said Romar. "Things like that happen. ... When I was a player, I played with a lot of other guys who had great careers, and once in a while those things happen."

Like Romar, Washington players are supportive of Dentmon. Mike Jensen pointed out that Dentmon came to practice with a good attitude Monday, ready to put the game behind him. Fellow seniors Bobby Jones and Brandon Roy also stood behind their point guard.

"We told him, 'You're our point guard and we need you for the remainder of the season,' " said Roy. "We just keep telling Justin, 'We still need you and we need you to play well. Turn the page on that loss. Going over the film, there's a lot of things we did that made that game closer than it had to be. Just because you made a mistake at the end doesn't mean you lost that game. We win games as a team and we lose them as a team.' "

On Sunday, the Huskies lost as a team for the second time in a row, something they hadn't done since the end of the 2004 season. Now the team's focus is on getting back on track.

"The thing is us just recovering from that," said Jensen. "We've got to stick together. We can't point any fingers. We told the young guys that every single team in the nation is going to have games like that. The key is how you recover from that, how you respond. Whether or not you bounce back or start to nosedive. I think that our main focus is: no nosedive, keep playing the way we know we can and understand that this week we need to get some things done."

Helping the Huskies, especially the older players on the team, avoid a potential freefall will be the knowledge that they've been in worse shape than 5-4 in Pac-10 games.

"We can't give up hope," said Roy, who played for the Huskies when they started the 2003-04 Pac-10 season 0-5 before coming back to finish second in the conference. "I've started off 0-5, so it doesn't get any worse than that. Five-and-four is not bad at all. We just have to keep scrapping and keep fighting and know that if we win this game we've got two games at home and chance to go to 7-4. The future is still bright for us."

Note

• After having a chance to go over the tape of Sunday's loss, Romar feels a backcourt violation may have been missed on the final play of regulation. On the inbound pass, Stanford's Lawrence Hill passed to Matt Haryasz near midcourt. Haryasz caught the ball and flicked a quick pass to Chris Hernandez, who was fouled on the game-tying attempt.

Haryasz was past the center-court line when the pass was thrown and caught the pass coming across the line. He was in his team's backcourt when he made the pass to Hernandez.

After watching a replay, Romar said he thought Haryasz did commit a backcourt violation.

"Yes, I thought it probably could have been called," Romar said.

Jones agreed, adding that there might have been a travel on the play as well. "I didn't see the replay until yesterday, but it looked like he traveled and went backcourt," he said.

According to Lou Campanelli, the Pac-10's coordinator of Men's Basketball Officiating, the play was reviewed and there was no violation.

John Boyle: 206-464-2364 or jboyle@seattletimes.com