Washington dominated Western Washington, 105-85, Thursday in an exhibition game at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

But the score wasn’t what mattered most in a tune-up game against an NCAA Division II opponent.

Coach Lorenzo Romar was happy just to take his new team out for a test drive before returning it to the garage for another week of tune-ups leading up to the regular season opener Nov. 15 at the University of Portland.

“It was good for us to finally get out on the floor,” Romar said. “I look back to trying to compare to where we were last year at this time, and I think we’re further along. I thought we played very good defense in spurts. I thought we had too many spurts when we didn’t. And we can’t do that. We can’t do that next Saturday when we play at Portland. But overall there were a lot of positives.”

Tops among those was a sparking college debut by freshman guard Isaiah Thomas of Tacoma.

Thomas led all scorers with 27 points, hitting nine of 12 shots from the field, fearlessly attacking the basket and tossing out three assists, including a couple of dazzlers.

“At first I was anxious to get out there, but once tipoff came it was normal,” Thomas said. “The lights was on and it was time to perform and we did a good job of that today. … I think we can do a lot better in a lot of areas. I’m not going to say we didn’t do good, but we’re a lot better team.”

Other highlights included Jon Brockman’s 18 rebounds, the team’s upgrade to 69 percent accuracy from the foul line, and a bench deep with athletic players.

Less encouraging were the Huskies occasional lapses in focus, their willingness to take a mediocre shot rather than work for a better one, and a defensive meltdown that allowed the Vikings to shred them for 58 points in the second half.

“I thought we played like 30 minutes of great basketball,” Brockman said. “There were times when we were playing and I thought we were unbelievable. We were working together. On the defensive end, guys were moving, guys were talking. But then we played like that for a little bit and all of a sudden go dead and guys weren’t getting back on defense. But for the most part I thought we played a pretty good ball game.”

Other observations from the exhibition:

 • Romar went with a starting lineup of Brockman, Thomas, Justin Dentmon, Quincy Pondexter and Darnell Gant. And while Matthew Bryan-Amaning came off the bench to thrill the crowd of 7,836 with a couple of dazzling dunks, Romar seemed to appreciate Gant’s quieter contributions.

 • The first three Huskies off the bench were Bryan-Amaning, Venoy Overton and Elston Turner. The next two were Joe Wolfinger and Justin Holiday.

 • When Thomas shared the floor with Dentmon, Thomas handled the ball. When Thomas was paired with Overton, Overton did.

 • Brockman took the first UW free throw of the new season, and nailed it, drawing cheers in memory of the team’s costly 58.6 percent success rate of last season.

 • Dentmon spent the offseason working on his outside shooting, and the work showed. The senior guard hit 7-of-10 shots from the field, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range.

After all that played out, Romar was asked his areas of emphasis over this final week before his team boards the bus for Portland.

“It will continue to be defense and rebounding,” he said. “But I also thought on the offensive end at times shot selection was questionable – we’ve got to do a better job with that. And there were too many unforced turnovers that we had. The first half, I thought we did an overall nice job. With the exception of about three minutes I thought we played pretty good basketball. In the second half, we let our guard down a little bit. They like to get up and down, but 58 points in a half is far too many.”

Don Ruiz: 253-597-8808

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