SEATTLE — A game Washington couldn’t afford to lose was precariously close to getting away from the Huskies.
Oregon State — yes, that Oregon State, the team without a Pac-10 win and with a coach everyone is expecting to be fired any day — went from a pesky opponent who wouldn’t let the Huskies have an easy home win to a team with a five-point lead with five minutes left in the game.
From there, led by junior forward Jon Brockman, the Huskies came to life, cranked up the intensity, and made their final nine field-goal attempts of the game to pull out an 83-74 victory Saturday afternoon in front of 9,421 at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
“We struggled today,” said senior guard Ryan Appleby, who finished with nine points. “We didn’t have a lot of intensity or a lot of energy it looked like, and to be able to pull it out in the end was good for us. It’s a good confidence builder to know that if we haven’t been playing well, we can have guys step up at the end and get a win.”
Symbolic of the late turnaround for Washington was the second half — and in particular the final few minutes — of Brockman’s game. The Huskies usually steady co-captain made only one of his first seven field-goal attempts, and was 4-for-11 in the first half.
But when the Huskies needed him most, Brockman came through with nine points and two assists in the final 3:36 of the game. His three-point play with 1:47 gave the Huskies a four-point lead and the Beavers never got closer than that the rest of the way.
“Throughout the first half, I missed some wide-open shots,” said Brockman, who finished with 26 points and 14 rebounds, giving him a Pac-10 best 12 double-doubles. “Sometimes it just feels like the lid’s on the rim and you can’t buy a bucket, but I knew that if I just kept going at them, I’d either get fouled or get layins, so I just keep pushing and going at them. Our whole team did a great job of getting me the ball down low, we did an awesome job in that area, and it started working … It all worked out.”
Brockman’s teammates weren’t surprised he came through down the stretch despite struggling early. “I don’t think anybody ever worries about Jon,” said Appleby. “He’s going to get his points in some way or another. If they’re doubling him a lot, he’ll get a bunch of offensive rebounds and get tip-ins or something like that. We never worry about him, we know he’s going to come through at the end.”
Brockman was joined in double-figure scoring by Quincy Pondexter, who scored 12 points, was 4-for-5 from the field and added three assists, and Matthew Bryan-Amaning, who had 12 points and seven rebounds. The 12-point effort was a season-high for the freshman Bryan-Amaning. He and freshman point guard Venoy Overton continued to show that they are going to be part of Washington’s present and not just the future.
Overton, who started for the third straight game, had a season-high seven assists and added three steals. He came up with a crucial play late in the game that helped build momentum in the final minutes.
After the Huskies had taken back the lead with just under three minutes left, Overton knocked the ball loose from Oregon State guard Josh Tarver, and dove to the floor where he and Tarver became tangled, leading to a brief bit of trash talk, but more importantly a Washington possession.
“That was huge,” said Brockman. “If I had to pick a play of the game, that was the biggest play for us, because we were up one, the crowd was into it, and Venoy just sits down, gets a hand on the ball and runs and dives on it. That’s something that just gives us energy, lifts us up and gets us going. For a freshman, that was a huge play.”
That wasn’t the only time in the second half that tempers flared. With 1:05 left in the game, Tarver was fouled driving to the hoop. His shot missed after the whistle, and as C.J. Giles leapt for the rebound, Brockman, who was on the ground under the hoop, put his legs up and got tangled with Giles. The two exchanged words and were both give technicals, as was Tarver.
“He was up in the air to grab the rebound of the missed shot and he was about to fall on top of me, so I think I kind of kicked my legs up to make sure he wouldn’t fall on me, and maybe I did it too aggressively I don’t know,” Brockman said. “But tempers started going and then … it’s basketball, it happens sometimes, and the refs did a good job of coming in and making sure nothing happened and controlling the game.”
Brockman said it was the second technical foul of his basketball career, with the first coming for hanging on the rim after a dunk in a high school game.
“It was two teams fighting hard,” Lorenzo Romar said. “One team with no (Pac-10) wins saw potential victory and they were going to give it all they had. Another team thinking, ‘Man, we’re at home and we might not come out at top.’ Just guys getting after each other. Good old hard, aggressive basketball.”
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com/huskiesblog
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