Associated Press
SEATTLE — Washington head coach Mike Hopkins didn’t get the full 40-minute effort he hoped for from his team Friday night, but one strong half was enough to propel the Huskies to victory.
Noah Dickerson and Matisse Thybulle each scored 12 points, and Nahziah Carter added 11 off the bench as the Huskies overcame a sluggish first half to defeat Sacramento State 57-41 Friday night.
“Halftime allowed us to take a step back and take a breather, and realize that we weren’t doing what we were supposed to be doing,” Thybulle said. “We came out (in the second half) not messing around. We were ready to go.”
The Huskies (8-4) shot just 33 percent in the first half, including 0 of 11 from the 3-point line, but held Sacramento State (6-3) to 19 points after the halftime break as they improved to 6-0 at Alaska Airlines Arena.
“We just came out flat,” Hopkins said. “I don’t know what it was.”
Washington flipped the script from the start of the second half, scoring the first 11 points of the period to quickly erase its 22-19 halftime deficit. The Huskies turned to their defense to create easy offense, forcing the Hornets into 21 turnovers, which they turned into 24 points. Thybulle led the Huskies with seven steals, and has now recorded at least one steal in 58 straight games.
“We were able to get some turnovers, get some easy baskets, get some flow,” Hopkins said. “Force them to speed up and take shots they didn’t want to take. That was the key to the game.”
The Hornets led by as many as nine in the first half, taking a 20-11 lead on a layup by Marcus Graves with 6:16 remaining, as the Huskies went nearly eight minutes without a bucket. Dickerson flushed home a dunk to cut the UW deficit to 14-11 with 11:50 to play and the Huskies didn’t score another bucket until a David Crisp layup at the 4:09 mark.
“If we could’ve gone into halftime with an 8 to 10 point lead instead of three, that would have been huge,” Sacramento State head coach Brian Katz said.
Joshua Patton and Graves led the Hornets with 12 points each. Sacramento State converted on just three field goals in the second half, and shot 26.1 percent for the game.
“That zone is no joke,” Katz said of the UW’s 2-3 zone defense.
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