SEATTLE – Sometimes, they do live up to their hype.
One of the most anticipated regular-season men’s basketball games to be played at Hec Edmundson Pavilion in a long time provided a sold-out crowd with 40 minutes of incredible entertainment as No. 18 Washington rode the play of its two new point guards to a 99-95 victory over No. 6 Gonzaga Sunday night.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
The win snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Bulldogs and gave the Huskies their national-best 29th straight home win.
Freshman point guard Justin Dentmon scored a career-high 17 points, including nine in the last seven minutes, and former Stanwood star Ryan Appleby sank four key 3-pointers as the Huskies survived a 43-point night from Gonzaga star Adam Morrison.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our guys,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. “Our guys played a tough brand of basketball. That was about as high level basketball game as you’re going to see in college, and I thought our guys responded.”
The win improves Washington’s record to 7-0 for the first time since the 1990-91 season and dropped Gonzaga to 4-2.
Both teams played without key players for long stretches. Gonzaga point guard Derek Raivio was injured with 9:41 to play in the first half and never returned. Washington’s Brandon Roy sat out the last 6:36 of the first half with foul trouble, then fouled out with 2:20 left in the game.
That, though, allowed other players to step forward – Dentmon in particular. Playing in front of his mother – who flew in from Carbondale, Ill., to see her son play for the first time in his collegiate career – Dentmon played like someone who had been in that type of atmosphere regularly. He added four rebounds, six assists, two steals and had just one turnover. He was also 9-for-9 from the foul line, including 7-for-7 in the second half.
“He’s fearless,” Roy said. “In practice, he’s always going at it. …He practices that way and he came out and played that way.”
“I’ve never been in this environment,” Dentmon said. “I hope to be in more. It seems like I play better the bigger the crowd is.”
“Justin’s made big shots all his life,” Romar said. “He’s a gamer.”
Gonzaga took its first lead of the game – 70-69 – with 11:08 to play on a Morrison jump shot. From that point, there was one tie and seven lead changes and neither team led by more than four points.
Four straight points by Gonzaga’s Pierre Marie Altidor-Cespedes gave the Bulldogs a 93-92 lead with 1:39 to play, The Bulldogs had a chance to add to it but Bobby Jones raced back to intercept a long pass to Morrison, leading to a Jamaal Williams jump shot and a one-point Washington lead.
Dentmon converted a three-point play to give the Huskies a 97-93 lead with 1:09 left to play. Morrison was fouled on a dunk – cutting UW’s lead to two points – but missed the free throw with 58 seconds to play.
After running the clock down, Dentmon missed a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 25 seconds left. Morrison missed a 3-pointer with 10 seconds to go and Sean Mallon missed the putback as Jones snared the rebound and was fouled. Jones made a pair of free throws with five seconds left to seal the first win against the Bulldogs in Jones’ Husky career.
For the game, Washington was 30-for-35 from the free-throw line.
The loss only slightly takes away from the effort of Morrison. The 6-foot-8 senior, who came into the game in a tie for the nation’s lead in scoring at 27 points a game, made 18 of 29 shots, but just 1-for-8 on 3-pointers (as a team Gonzaga was 1-for-15 on threes). Washington started with Roy guarding Morrison and Jones on Raivio but mixed zones and man pressure all night.
“That is a phenomenal performance,” Romar said. “The best performance of any one that I’ve been sitting on the other bench of as an assistant or head coach. We contested him all night. He hit great shots. As crazy as it sounds, I think our guys guarded him pretty good.”
“We took too tough of a shot,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said of Morrison final attempt from the right corner. “We should have been patient out there. But Adam makes tough shots all the time, so if the ball is in his hands, that is where we want it to be.”
Washington jumped out to an 11-4 lead behind seven points from Williams (who led Washington with 22 points on 10-for-16 shooting) and led 16-6 on a Jones 3-pointer and an Appleby jump shot. Appleby twice made 3-pointers to slow Gonzaga runs in the first half as the Huskies led 51-42 at halftime. Appleby, who scored 14 points off the bench, also hit two threes in the second half that turned a Gonzaga lead into a Washington advantage.
“My teammates did a good job finding me out there on those couple shots in the second half,” Appleby said. “I was open. …I’m glad I made them.”
Washington led by 11 before a Morrison layup sparked an 18-4 Bulldogs run that gave them a 72-69 lead. In the run, Morrison scored 10 points and appeared to get away with a foul that instead went to Roy – his fourth – and led Romar to be assessed a technical foul.
“We just didn’t come up with enough plays at the end,” Few said. “But Washington hit some big shots, and made some big plays down the stretch.”
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