SEATTLE — After three games — all losses — of slow, methodical, grind-it-out basketball, Oregon proved to be just the change of pace Washington needed.
In a game that looked at times like five-on-five wind sprints Thursday night, the Huskies seemed to rediscover their missing offense, and the end result was a 78-70 win over Oregon at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
After scoring just 52, 55 and 51 points in losses to Washington State, UCLA and USC, the up-tempo Ducks seemed to awaken the Huskies on the offensive end.
Ryan Appleby, who was shut out in two games in Los Angeles, made five 3-pointers on the way to a 19-point performance. Venoy Overton, starting at point guard for the second straight game, was as aggressive as he has been all season, slashing to the hoop for layups and crowd-thrilling dunks as he compiled 11 points, five assists and four rebounds. And Jon Brockman, well, he was Jon Brockman, finishing with 21 points and 16 rebounds.
“The pace was lovely,” said Overton, who combined with Appleby for the biggest play of the game.
After the Ducks had trimmed a 10-point Washington lead down to three points late in the second half, the Huskies desperately needed a score. During a timeout, the Huskies drew up a play that was designed to get the ball to Brockman, but as Overton drove into the lane, he saw “the only blond guy on the court” open behind the three-point line. The freshman point-guard turned while in the air and fired a pass to Appleby, who made the shot to give Washington a six-point lead with 1:15 remaining. From there, Ducks never got closer than five points.
“Not many players can make that play,” Lorenzo Romar said of Overton’s drive and pass. “It was just a great, great play.”
That play was at least in part set early in the game as Overton attacked the rim in the first half. As he drove into the key, Appleby’s defender, Malik Hairston, abandoned Washington’s best shooter to help inside.
“I was taking it to the hoop in the beginning of the game, so they kind of thought I was going to put a shot up, but App was just wide open,” Overton said.
Overton said a couple of conversations with Romar helped prepare him for what was one of his best games as a Husky.
“Coach Romar had a talk with me (Wednesday) and before the game, he told me to stop looking over my shoulder and just go play,” he said. “That kind of got my head back right and gave me a little confidence, so that really helped me.”
Overton’s eight-point first half was just part of Washington’s offensive awakening, as the Huskies scored 44 points on 51.4 percent shooting to build a five-point lead. That lead grew to double digits in the second half, but the play of Maarty Leunen, who made eight of nine shots and scored 22 points, and Hairston, who finished with 20 points, helped keep the Ducks in the game and eventually bring them to within three points.
Thanks in large part to Appleby’s final three and good defense in the final minute, however, the Huskies held on.
“That’s an attitude we wouldn’t have had last year,” Brockman said. “I think last year we might have kind of faded away and they might have taken the lead at that point. But we have a couple more experienced players who have been in the league and we’re not as young as we used to be. We did a good job of digging our heels in and saying, ‘All right, that’s enough. No more. We’ve got to take care of this game.’”
While it’s probably an overstatement to slap the “must win” tag on a college basketball game taking place in mid January this game came awfully close.
After an 0-3 start in Pac-10 play, the Huskies knew they had a lot of work to do, and that it had to start in this game.
“It’s really nice,” said Brockman. “It’s kind of a monkey off the back kind of deal. It’s kind of like, ‘All right, we got the first one out of the way, now we can just concentrate and keep pushing on.’”
Earlier in the week, Brockman called a players-only meeting to make sure everyone was on the same page.
“It was important to realize that we’re all in this together,” he said of the meeting. “The only way we’re going to win is if we all do it as a team, and I think that anytime you can get together without the coaches, just the players, and just talk, get everything out, get everything on the same page, it helps a lot. I don’t know if the meeting correlated over to helping in the game, but I know it was just good for us as a team.”
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com/huskiesbloga
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