By Lauren Kirschman

The News Tribune

SEATTLE — Mike Hopkins has said it several times over the past few weeks: Washington has learned how to win.

There’s certainly plenty of evidence to support that claim, like the Huskies winning their first 10 games in conference play. With a 12-1 record, they’re still alone at the top of the Pac-12 standings.

But after UW’s victory over UCLA in early February, Hopkins said there’s another step to the process. Now that the Huskies have learned how to win, they need to learn how to be champions.

They could take a step in that direction as early as this week.

UW needs two more wins to clinch the Pac-12 regular season championship. It could also earn the title with a victory over Colorado on Saturday if Oregon State also loses both its games this week and Arizona State loses once.

But what’s even more exciting for UW’s head coach than all that winning is how the Huskies are doing it: With defense.

UW didn’t play particularly well offensively during its 62-45 win over Utah on Wednesday night. That’s why Hopkins kept telling his players that their defense had to be great.

It was even better than that.

It was excellent.

Utah went nearly 16 minutes without a field goal, a stretch that lasted from the end of the first into the second. UW also held the Utes to 18 points on five field goals in the second half.

Asked what it’s been like to see this group of players fully embrace the 2-3 zone, Hopkins settled on one word: Fun.

“It’s a lot of fun when you can hang your hat on something that’s really, really good,” Hopkins said. “And most importantly, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks is good. It’s what you think is really good. That belief. When you got guys that can understand and make adjustments, that’s when you’re different.”

UW made a big adjustment on Wednesday. Utah leading scorer Sedrick Barefield scored 12 points in the first half on 4-of-5 shooting from the 3-point line. For the Huskies, that was unacceptable. Assistant coach Will Conroy let the players know that during their timeouts early in the first half. And when he was done, Hopkins repeated his words.

“Anybody else can score,” point guard David Crisp said of their message. “This guy is not going to score no more.”

And he didn’t. Barefield, who averages 16.1 points per game for Utah, didn’t record a point in the second half. In order to shut him down, Crisp said, the Huskies just had to follow the plan.

“That was definitely part of the scout,” Crisp said. “We don’t let team’s best players beat us. Take the head of the snake out of the game. Once you do that, you try to make the other guys beat you. A lot of teams aren’t too successful playing that way.”

That’s certainly true for most of the opponents UW has faced during conference play. The Huskies are holding Pac-12 teams to 61.4 points per game, 42.1 shooting from the field and 30.6 percent shooting from the 3-point line. They lead the conference in all three categories.

Suffice to say, following the plan has worked out so far.

“We’re learning how to have a target on our back,” Hopkins said. “We’re learning all these new areas. Uncharted territory. We’re in the boat trying to find America. All you can do as a coach and what I’ve realized is, you’ve got to focus them on playing together and understanding our defense and executing our game plan. If we can do what, we can beat anybody.”