SEATTLE — Tougher tests will come later in a rugged Pacific-10 Conference schedule, but for openers Tuesday night’s 88-47 victory by Washington over New Jersey Tech wasn’t all that bad.
In places, it wasn’t all that good either.
The Huskies toyed with the visitors for most of the first half of this opening-round game of the preseason NIT, and then poured it on in the second half for a lopsided win against a decidedly overmatched opponent. Five Huskies scored in double-figures, and at the defensive end Washington held the Highlanders to just 19 field goals, and just 12 inside the 3-point arc.
Defense, in fact, was the primary highlight mentioned by UW coach Lorenzo Romar.
“I just thought from the outset we were up pressuring the basketball,” he said. “And with the exception of a couple of undisciplined plays on the defensive end, we did a pretty good job of containing them. … Our pressure was consistent and constant throughout the night.”
Still, Washington had more than a few flaws — among them, 12 turnovers in a mostly ragtag first half — and those will need to be corrected if the Huskies are to beat Utah, a 77-64 winner over High Point in Tuesday’s first game, in tonight’s NIT West Regional championship.
“Utah is a very good basketball team,” Romar said, “and we will have to be better (tonight). If we commit 12 turnovers in the first half again, it will be a long first half and an uphill battle in the second half.”
Another glaring shortcoming was free throw shooting. The Huskies missed their first six attempts at the stripe, made one, then missed two more, meaning they started out a mere 1-for-9. At game’s end, that mark had improved to 10-for-21.
Yet for as bad as they were at the line, the Huskies shot well from the field. Washington was 36-for-69 from the field, including a blistering 17-for-26 (65.4) in the first half.
New Jersey Tech, from Newark, N.J., is beginning just its second season in NCAA Division I, and the Highlanders were at an obvious talent disadvantage. Washington spotted them an early 3-2 lead, but from there the Huskies ran off 15 straight points, threatening to make the game an early rout.
But then sloppy mistakes cropped up, and the margin was barely in double digits late in the second half.
The Huskies, though, closed the first half with 10 unanswered points, and the lead continued to swell throughout the second half. The largest margin was 46 points (86-40) with just over two minutes to play.
Romar, celebrating his 49th birthday, spread his minutes among 11 players and the scoring was also balanced. Forward Tim Morris, who sat out last season after transferring from Stanford, finished with 16 points in 23 minutes to lead the Huskies, including three consecutive field goals in the space of 45 seconds late in second half, all on aggressive moves to the basket, one a terrific soaring one-handed slam.
Forward Jon Brockman, in just 21 minutes, contributed 12 points and a game-high nine rebounds.
Tonight’s Washington-Utah tipoff is at 7:30 p.m. with the winner earning a trip to New York for a Nov. 21 NIT semifinal game at Madison Square Garden.
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