SEATTLE — It started out with Jon Brockman just being a good uncle.
It ended up with Brockman, the leading scorer and rebounder for the University of Washington men’s basketball team, going to Monroe’s Valley General Hospital on Christmas night for three stitches on the left thumb he sliced with a pocket knife while helping his nephew cut zip ties from a gift.
“It’s not that bad. Just a little scratch,” Brockman said sheepishly, minutes after Washington’s 75-53 victory over Montana on Sunday afternoon at Bank of America Arena.
Brockman, a senior forward who totaled 13 points and 11 rebounds, played with his thumb heavily bandaged. “It’s so fresh of a cut,” he explained, “we have to wrap it up to make sure I don’t get blood on my jersey.”
The wound hampered Brockman “maybe a little in just gripping the ball, but for the most part it felt pretty good,” he went on. “It’s just annoying. A little bit of pain, but nothing serious.”
Maybe not serious, but still three more stitches for Brockman in December, bringing his monthly total to nine. A few weeks ago he received six stitches under his left eye after being belted in practice by teammate Artem Wallace.
In between seeing a doctor for sutures, Brockman suffered a sprained ankle at practice that caused him to miss the Dec. 14 game against Portland State.
“This is his senior year and you hate to see things like that happen,” said UW head coach Lorenzo Romar, who heard about the injury in a Friday morning phone call from Brockman’s father, Gordy Brockman. “(Anything) that prevents him from going out and playing every game at full strength his senior year.”
If Brockman was slowed against Montana, it was barely apparent. He was his usual relentless self, grabbing tough rebounds in crowds and muscling to the basket for layins. He could have scored more, but the Huskies distributed the points — 11 of 12 players scored, four in double figures — against the overmatched Grizzlies.
Brockman shared high scoring honors with teammate Isaiah Thomas, a freshman guard who was simply too quick for any Montana player to defend. Sophomore forward Matthew Bryan-Amaning, meanwhile, was the game’s leading rebounder with 15.
And then there was sophomore guard Venoy Overton, who had a nice game with 10 points, four steals, three rebounds and three assists. Except all anyone wanted to talk about afterward was his back-to-back missed dunks midway through the second half.
The sequence began with Overton taking a lead pass for a breakaway. He soared to the basket, but then seemed undecided whether to make a layin or a dunk. He ended up missing because the ball appeared to slip from his hand.
Montana snagged the rebound and started up the court, but Overton came from behind to make a steal. Once again he had an open path to the basket, and this time he tried for an emphatic dunk — except the ball slammed off the back rim.
“Coach wanted to say something so bad, I could tell,” Overton said with a rueful smile. “But he kind of hung back and (only said), ‘Don’t worry about the highlights, just finish the plays.’”
Romar seemed generally pleased with his team’s performance, particularly in the first half when the Huskies built a 41-21 margin. Washington trailed 10-6 in the early minutes, but then took the game in hand with a 23-0 scoring run over a period of almost 10 minutes.
“I thought we played a very, very good first half, and not a very good second half at all,” Romar said.
“It seems like when the game is close, we’re focused. But when the game gets away a little bit, maybe sometimes we get a little distracted and then we try to experiment and try to create some highlights. And we can’t play that way. … We take ourselves out of points, out of baskets when we do that.”
With the victory, Washington improved to 8-3 this season. The Huskies have one more non-conference game — they host Morgan State on Tuesday night — before preparing for their Pacific-10 Conference opener against Washington State on Saturday in Pullman.
“I think we’re getting ready,” Brockman said. “You can feel the excitement. Guys are getting amped up for league play.”
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