With a 32-game regular-season schedule this year, Washington's season breaks down nice and even into quarters.

And Saturday's win over Texas Southern, making UW 5-3, finished the first quarter of the season for the Huskies.

The Huskies are probably a game worse than they thought they'd be --- the loss at Portland still stings, especially considering the Pilots just lost at home to Eastern Washington.

But they are feeling a lot more hopeful than they were at the halfway point of this quarter when they had just gotten blown out by Kansas.

Since then, UW is 3-1, losing only a tight game to Florida, a four-game stretch much cleaner than the four before it.

Numbers can be misleading this time of year, especially with such small sample sizes. Still, a few of the stats seem to illustrate why UW has played better of late.

Consider that UW has shot 48 percent or better in all four games --- and 58.9 and 59.3 in two of them --- after shooting 45.6 percent or worse in each of the first four.

Consider further that UW has averaged 17.75 assists the last four games after getting no more than 14 in any of the first four.

UW has also forced an average of 17 turnovers the last four games compared to 12.25 in the first four.

"I like the fact that we are showing the potential to be a much better defensive team than we have been the last couple of years,'' said UW coach Lorenzo Romar. "I also like the fact that we are (improving) in sharing the basketball and taking better shots.''

On the downside, UW is still committing too many turnovers ---- an average of 16.6 for the year, which is down to just 15.25 the last four games --- and still not shooting free throws all that great (62 percent, mitigated by the fact that opponents are shooting just 59.1 percent).

Asked what he hasn't liked so far, Romar said "turnovers and (we still need to play) 40 minutes every time we play. I think we have made strides in that regard the last two weeks but we still need to do a better job.''