In their second game of the season, the Washington Huskies cleaned up some of the nagging concerns that had lingered after Game One.
Washington added post scoring, outside shooting and a ton of rebounding in racing past Belmont, 96-78, Saturday before a crowd of 8,410 at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
And the Huskies also became far more than a one-man offensive show. Quincy Pondexter scored a game-high 25, which was just ahead of Isiah Thomas and Matthew Bryan-Amaning, who had 23 each. Those totals matched career highs for Pondexter and Bryan-Amaning.
The majority of Bryan-Amaning’s 11 field goals came in the low post. Meanwhile, his teammates were drilling 7-of-17 3-point attempts (.412).
“We’re making progress,” coach Lorenzo Romar said. “We made progress on the boards. A number of people attacked the glass. We had a concerted effort to outrebound them.”
And the Huskies did that too: 48-24.
The Huskies (2-0) seemed determined from the start to go inside on the Bruins (1-1). And they did it by getting Bryan-Amaning involved early, as the 6-foot-9 junior had six of UW’s first 12 points on two dunks and a short jumper.
“From what the coaches had seen, we knew they were going to play us one-on-one on the post,” Bryan-Amaning said. “The bigs had to go to work.”
Belmont coach Rick Byrd said he knew the risk, but he had no appealing alternative.
“(Bryan-Amaning) made shots that we felt like we had to make him make – over us from 8 feet, half-hooks and that kind of stuff,” Byrd said. “But you know: Pick your poison. I mean, what are you going to do when all of a sudden Thomas is a doggone 3-point shooter? … And when he can do that, how the hay do you keep him from driving; because he may be as hard to guard driving the basketball as I’ve ever seen.”
Washington’s early lead gave way briefly as Belmont worked back even about five minutes before halftime.
That’s when Tacoma freshman Clarence Trent made his college debut, and his infusion of energy coincided with an 11-0 run that put Washington back in control.
“I think Clarence had something to do with it,” Romar said. “... As we looked out on the floor we still were not rebounding the ball well enough, and we knew Clarence is going to make something happen one way or another. He plays with energy, and he produces.”
Washington’s lead peaked at 23 points, about seven minutes from the end.
“We’re a very young basketball team that plays in the Atlantic Sun, playing a really, really good team in the Pac-10, a team that’s picked to be in the top 15 in the country,” Byrd said. “Although when it got to 34-34 I was hoping for better than it ended up, but ... Washington’s a really, really good team that presents a lot of problems for anybody at any level, but particularly a team like us.”
It was a much different result from the Huskies’ staggering 74-69 win over Wright State the night before, when Thomas carried the load with 30 points – more than twice the output of his closest teammate.
Thomas had acknowledged that kind of scoring imbalance wouldn’t be a good thing over the long haul and he rightly predicted it wouldn’t last.
“Like I told you guys (Friday), it’s a new day and (Saturday) was somebody else’s day to do a little bit of work,” Thomas said. “Quincy and Matt did a great job of coming in, getting under the boards and scoring points. (Today) might be somebody else’s day.”
The final day of the Athletes in Action Classic begins at 4:30 p.m., when Belmont meets Wright State (1-1). The tournament concludes at 7 p.m. with Washington playing Portland State.
The Vikings are off to an 0-2 start under coach Tyler Geving, who took over when former UW assistant Ken Bone moved to Washington State.
“They run the same exact system,” Romar said. “And they shoot a lot of 3s. That’s what they did when Coach Bone was there.”
Don Ruiz, 253-597-8808
blog.thenewstribune.com/uwsports
