SEATTLE – If it wasn’t clear that it was going to be the University of Washington’s day at the beginning of Thursday’s game, it was clear just before halftime.
Oregon State called timeout 26 seconds into the contest and Kayla Burt made a 40-footer at the halftime buzzer as the Huskies rolled over the Beavers 84-53 in a Pacific-10 Conference women’s basketball game at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
The margin of victory was Washington’s largest of the season by far. The Huskies’ previous best was a 13-point win over California on Jan. 2. It also kept alive Washington’s hopes of avoiding its first ever losing record at home. The Huskies are 6-7 at Hec Ed with two games to play.
The game marked the third time in the last four contests that Washington has scored at least 80 points, a positive sign for a team averaging 67.7 points entering Thursday’s game. It was the most points scored by the UW since it had 86 against Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Nov. 26. In addition, it was the fewest points the Huskies allowed since giving up 52 to Cal.
“I liked our intensity,” Washington coach June Daugherty said. “All week this team has done a better job at really focusing on what we need to improve upon … We were way more focused in terms of what we wanted to do offensively and defensively.”
What the Huskies wanted to do was play aggressively on both sides of the ball. Washington forced 13 of its 21 turnovers before halftime, leading to 18 points. In all, the UW forced 25 turnovers, 21 off of steals, leading to 25 points. All 13 Washington players scored, and 11 of the 13 had steals.
“We are finally learning how to play hard for 40 minutes,” said sophomore guard Cameo Hicks, who scored 11 of her 13 points in the first half and added a team-high nine rebounds (six offensive).
“We talked about wanting to get into our running game and that helped us tremendously tonight. We had multiple fast break opportunities and that is what got us sparked.”
The game was a slight turnaround from the first time the teams played, a 75-64 Washington win on Jan. 15. In that game, OSU had 14 turnovers and the Huskies had 29. Washington had 13 on Thursday.
“We wanted to stay very aggressive and take care of the basketball, and make sure we were attacking the press because we had a lot of three-on-ones,” Daugherty said.
Hicks scored four points in the opening 26 seconds, prompting Oregon State coach Judy Spoelstra to call a time out. That’s when it looked like it might be a good day for Washington, which lost two five-point games at USC and UCLA last week.
“That showed that if we keep our intensity up, keep our running game up, we can put the other team in a lot of trouble,” Hicks said of the early timeout.
“Right from the tip we were on our heels the whole time,” Spoelstra said. “Our guards had a really hard time swinging the ball around. Washington does a great job of help-side defense, and they’ve got a lot of great athletes.”
Entering less than four minutes into the game, Burt, the former Arlington High standout, set a defensive tone with five of her six steals in the first half. The second led to a three-point play by Kristen O’Neill that made it 18-9. Washington then went on a 14-4 run to open up a 34-18 lead and an Emily Florence 3-pointer made it 43-26. Burt stole a long inbounds pass and sank a 3-pointer just inside the halfcourt line at the first half buzzer that gave the UW a 48-28 lead. It was the Huskies’ largest halftime lead since Jan. 15, 2004.
In fact, the Washington players had been practicing half-court shots in practice Thursday before assistant coach Mike Daugherty told them to stop. He was afraid it would mess up their fundamentals.
“I kind of hesitated because I saw Emily (Florence) out of the corner of my eye and was going to pass to her,” Burt said. “But at the last second I just threw it up. It felt good and I thought it could go and it swished.”
The Huskies held Oregon State star Shannon Howell, the Pac-10’s leading scorer, to four points and 1-for-6 shooting from the field in the first half. Howell finished with 10 points, eight below her season average, and shot just 3-for-14.
Breanne Watson had 13 points off the bench for Washington, which had 22 assists on its 32 field goals. The Huskies play host to Oregon at 1 p.m. Saturday.
“We have made a lot of progress in that we’re beginning to understand that you have to set your teammate up off screens and you have to make the extra pass against the zone,” Daugherty said. “We have been getting better and better at that and tonight it was stellar.”
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