SEATTLE — The 3s were falling at Hec Edmundson Pavilion on Saturday afternoon, and there was a long stretch during which it looked like that wasn’t a good thing for the University of Washington men’s basketball team.
Thankfully for the Huskies, they had sharpshooter C.J. Wilcox around to pull the trigger in this gunfight.
Wilcox scored a team-high 22 points on 5-of-8 shooting from 3-point range, while senior big man Darnell Gant added a career-high 18 that included a pair of 3s of his own, as UW pulled away from a pesky Georgia State team 91-74 in Saturday’s season opener.
Gant, a 6-foot-8 fifth-year senior who spent his first four seasons at UW as a role player, carried the offensive load for much of the afternoon. He had 10 of UW’s 15 points in the opening 4½ minutes of the game and made 7 of 8 shots for the game. But Wilcox’s 3-point shooting was equally important in a game that saw undersized Georgia State and a star freshman light it up from the outside.
Eight minutes into the second half, the two teams had combined to hit 16 of 26 shots from 3-point range, including Wilcox’s 5-of-8 shooting to help counter the remarkable 6-of-7 performance from Panthers freshman Rashaad Richardson.
The two teams combined to hit 20 of 49 shots from 3-point range for the game, with GSU’s Richardson going 7-of-10 for a team-high 21 points.
“We were doing a poor job of keeping (penetrating guards) out of the middle, which was one of our defensive principles,” UW’s Abdul Gaddy said of the Huskies’ inability to guard the perimeter Saturday. “Every time they drove the middle, they seemed to get a wide-open shot (from the outside).”
The Panthers hung with UW for longer than expected, due in large part to some hot shooting from 3-point range. Richardson hit five of six shots from behind the 3-point arc before halftime to help Georgia State stay within striking distance for most of the first half. His fourth 3-pointer tied the score at 23 with eight minutes left in the first half, but UW outscored the Panthers 17-5 over the next seven minutes and — thanks in large part to a 19-8 advantage in free-throw attempts — eventually went into halftime with a 10-point lead.
An 11-3 spurt to open the second half put UW up 54-36 and sucked any remaining drama out of the building.
Gant followed that up with another spurt, scoring eight points in less than three minutes, before UW freshman Tony Wroten Jr. put on a bit of a show to help open up a 26-point UW lead midway through the second half.
Wroten ended up with 18 points, most of which came on dazzling drives to the basket or transition layups in his official debut, as well as seven rebounds and three assists.
“I think I played well,” Wroten said. “Not perfect. I’m just trying to do whatever it takes to help my team win.”
Four players scored in double figures for UW, with sophomore Terrence Ross chipping in with 11 points on 3-of-7 shooting.
It was a typical opening-game performance for UW, which now has an 8-2 opening-game record under coach Lorenzo Romar and typically uses early-season cupcakes to help fatten up the record before conference play begins.
Georgia State, despite a starting lineup that had no player taller than 6-foot-6, proved to be more challenging than expected early on. Thankfully for the Huskies, Gant and Wilcox had to provide some quick offense on a team that lost its three primary scorers from the 2010-11 squad.
Gaddy said he wasn’t surprised about Wilcox’s 3-point barrage.
“If he’s open, he’s going to make it,” the junior point guard said. “Sometimes I feel like, when you pass it to him, you don’t even have to look at the rim; you just get back on defense. That’s how good of a shooter he is.
“Teams are digging themselves in a hole if they leave him open.”
On an afternoon when 6-10 freshman Jernard Jarreau told Romar that he planned to redshirt, the Huskies were pretty thin up front and had only seven players see more than five minutes of action before the game got out of hand down the stretch. Wroten and 6-7 freshman Desmond Simmons were the first two players off the bench, and the Huskies had only two players taller than 6-7 — Gant and 7-footer Aziz N’Diaye — play more than 10 minutes.
As the freshman class went, Wroten lived up to his billing as the most exciting of the group. But a few of his most eye-opening plays of the afternoon didn’t quite get the expected finish.
A nifty crossover move with a ball fake resulted in a missed layup in the first half, then a no-look scoop pass zipped off the hands of Ross midway through the second half. With 2½ minutes remaining, Wroten went up high to swat away a shot from Georgia State’s Tony Kimbro, then stood over the Panthers freshman as he lay crumbled under the basket. Kimbro hurt his left wrist on the fall, while Ross was whistled for a personal foul because of body contact on the block.
The Huskies hope to add on to their early-season wins with a date with Florida Atlantic at 5 p.m. today. The event being billed as the World Vision Classic concludes with a game between UW and the University of Portland on Monday night.
Notes
UW freshman Alex Wegner, a walk-on from Vashon Island, made a memorable debout by hitting a 3-pointer on his first shot. Fellow walk-on Brendan Sherrer, a senior from Archbishop Murphy High School, missed on his only attempt. … N’Diaye had five of UW’s six blocked shots.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
