SEATTLE — With a cross-country trip looming for the semifinals of the NIT Season Tip-Off, the Huskies were in something of a New York state of mind Sunday.
The problem was, Washington still had a game to play before today’s flight to the Big Apple.
And whether the Huskies were looking ahead to their nationally-televised showdown with Texas A&M, or just had an off night for some other reason, the result was closer-than-it-probably-should-have-been 82-68 win over Eastern Washington at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
Washington beat New Jersey Tech and Utah last week in the first two rounds of the NIT to earn a trip to New York, but still had to play Eastern Sunday, and at the start of the game, it appeared the Huskies were a bit distracted.
Early in the first half, the Huskies turned the ball over on five straight possessions, and had just four points in the first five minutes. Luckily for the Huskies, the Eagles weren’t doing much better, and led 7-6 seven minutes into the half.
“I think there’s a lot of excitement amongst our team looking forward to going to New York, looking forward to playing in the NIT, and I think that makes it difficult to play in a game like this when you’re already thinking about something that’s coming up,” said Jon Brockman, who finished with a game-high 26 points and eight rebounds. “But that’s not an excuse at all. Basketball is basketball, you should be ready to play whenever.”
The Huskies finally started clicking not long after Eastern took the lead — the only time the Eagles would be ahead in the game — going on an 18-4 run.
Despite a 45-27 halftime lead, the game wasn’t over thanks to a scrappy second-half effort from Eastern, which was playing with just eight players. Washington opened the second half by building its biggest lead — 24 points — on back-to-back 3-pointers by Justin Dentmon and Joe Wolfinger. But the Eagles outscored Washington 28-13 over the next nine minutes to cut the deficit to nine with 2:08 remaining.
“For a team to be down 24, a lot of teams in the nation, anywhere at any level, they’ll just give up at that point, and they didn’t give up,” Brockman said of the Eagles. “They kept coming. A lot of credit to them. They played a lot better than we did in the second half.”
The Huskies were also short-handed Sunday, though they were better off than Eastern. Washington was not only without Ryan Appleby, who is recovering from a fractured thumb, but also Adrian Oliver, who suffered what Lorenzo Romar described as a knee strain. Oliver is expected to be fine for Wednesday’s game.
Dentmon, who finished with 16 points, seven assists and five rebounds, agreed that his team’s mental approach could have been better on Sunday.
“I think we took them a little lightly, like we knew we were going to win, but we shouldn’t have played like that,” the junior guard said. “We should have played like this was a chance to get to the NCAA Tournament.”
The good news for the Huskies is that any distraction caused by looking ahead didn’t cost them the game. Eastern never got closer than nine points, which was also the margin after a pair of free throws at the 1:07 mark. From there, Quincy Pondexter threw down a dunk off of a Brockman miss, and was fouled for a three-point play, effectively ending Eastern’s comeback hopes.
“I thought we did a pretty good job in the first half, and I thought, without discounting Eastern Washington at all, I thought we lost a little concentration in the second half,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. “We didn’t start the game off well with a lot of concentration, so that was disappointing, but it’s behind us, and now we’ve got a big challenge in front of us in New York.”
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington athletics, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com/huskiesblog
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