SEATTLE – The Big Sky Conference has been anything but clear for the Washington men’s basketball team this season.
Nearly a week after coming from 13 points down against Sacramento State, the No. 16 Huskies almost suffered a big post-Thanksgiving upset at the hands of Eastern Washington.
Behind the dynamic play of star guard Rodney Stuckey and a sloppy UW offense, the Eagles led by as many as 12 and pushed the Huskies to the end before Washington pulled out a 90-83 win Friday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
The victory was the 19th consecutive non-conference win for Washington (5-0), which overcame a 31-point performance by Stuckey, Eastern’s 6-foot-5 sophomore sensation from Kent. The defending Big Sky Player of the Year came in averaging 25.5 points and was 11-for-25 in the game, but foul trouble limited him in the second half and he scored just three points the final 9:40.
Still, despite Stuckey’s cold streak, Eastern (2-3) stayed in it as Washington could not find a rhythm on offense, shooting 43.3 percent. But five players did reach double figures for Washington, led by the career-high 23 of sophomore point guard Justin Dentmon, who stepped up in the second half with 19 points, including 11 in the final six minutes.
But while Dentmon led the offensive charge, it was freshman Adrian Oliver who provided the spark. Playing the best game of his short career, Oliver had 14 points, nine rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocked shots while also defending Stuckey most of the second half.
“Adrian Oliver was the catalyst for our team in terms of providing energy,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. “We were trying to play hard but we needed to stop the game and go watch ourselves on film quickly, during a timeout, so we could see that we really weren’t competing. We were playing hard, but we weren’t competing, and there’s a difference there.”
Oliver held Stuckey to 4-for-13 shooting in the second half, and said trying to contain the high-scoring guard was the key to the comeback.
“I know that their offense revolved around him,” Oliver said. “I just had to try to deny him the ball, and if he got the ball, I just had to stay in front of him, get a hand up, get some charges. … I just tried to make it hard on him.”
The first half featured several runs. Eastern went up 23-17 with a six-point spurt, but Washington countered with a 12-0 run to lead by six. The Eagles answered with a 24-6 run that included 13 points by Stuckey, whose three-point play made it 47-35 EWU with 3:19 to play before halftime.
“I said before the game I thought Rodney Stuckey was an NBA player,” Romar said. “I didn’t say he had the potential to be. I think he could play in the NBA right now. He’s a heck of a guard. I don’t know what he can’t do.”
The same could have been said for Oliver, especially in the final three minutes of the first half, when he made two free throws, blocked a shot that led to a Dentmon layup and sank a 3-pointer just inside the halfcourt line as the buzzer sounded, capping an 11-0 run that pulled Washington within one.
“I just put a little spin on the ball and got a little bit of luck,” Oliver said. “I don’t practice that.”
“If he didn’t give us the energy he gave us, we wouldn’t have pulled out like that,” Dentmon said. “The energy he gave us really hyped us up.”
Neither team led by more than five points for the first 17 minutes of the second half, but two Oliver free throws and a 3-pointer by Dentmon from the right wing made it 84-78 Washington with 2:11 to go. Dentmon extended the lead to seven with two more foul shots before fouling out, and Stuckey broke a nine-minute scoring personal scoring drought with a three-point play, but Eastern got no closer than four in the final 50 seconds.
“When you get in foul trouble, you’re out there trying to be cautious about everything,” said Stuckey, who played the last 5:40 with four fouls. “You really don’t want to pick up that last foul. I was just trying to be cautious and that really hurt us.”
Washington held Eastern to 31.6 percent shooting in the second half and 40 percent in the game, and out-rebounded the Eagles 48-37. Quincy Pondexter had 15 points and eight rebounds, Spencer Hawes had 14 points and Jon Brockman had 11 points and eight rebounds for the Huskies, who next play Wednesday at home against Idaho.
“I haven’t been concerned yet in terms of, ‘Uh oh, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to pull this one out,’” Romar said. “I felt like offensively we would start to do a little better job. In the second half we took care of the basketball a lot better, started to relax and they shot 31 percent in the second half. I wasn’t concerned. It was, ‘When is it going to happen where we start to get together?’ Toward the end of the half, there it was.”
Note: Washington recruit Justin Holliday attended the game along with his younger brother Jrue Holliday, one of the nation’s top-ranked recruits.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
