Four Huskies reach double figures, UW extends home winning streak against Arizona State
The Washington Huskies have not lost a game inside Hec Edmundson Pavilion since late December.
They haven’t lost a conference game in Seattle this season at all.
Thursday night, returning from a two-game set in the Bay Area — during which they split with California and Stanford — the Huskies added on to their success at home this season by topping Arizona State, 87-64.
“It’s just comfort,” Huskies coach Mike Hopkins said. “Our fans have been spectacular. And our defense at home has been at a high, high level. And you can feel it, you can see it, and they were there for us tonight again.”
UW (13-9, 8-4 Pac-12) has now won seven of its past nine conference contests, dropping only two losses — last month at Oregon and Sunday at Stanford — since early January.
In their only regular season meeting with Arizona State (7-15, 3-9) this season, it took less than two minutes for the Huskies to take the lead for good.
P.J. Fuller — making his first UW start in place of injured guard Daejon Davis — hit a second-chance 3-pointer with 18:37 remaining in the first half, the Huskies added on from there, and closed out a win with their biggest margin of victory this season.
Terrell Brown Jr., the conference’s leading scorer, paced UW with his game-high 19 points and seven assists as the Huskies finished 29-of-60 (48.3 percent) from the floor, including 9-of-21 (42.9 percent) from 3-point range.
Fuller (15 points), Emmitt Matthews Jr. (15) and Cole Bajema (12 points, four steals) also reached double figures for UW.
Kimani Lawrence (15 points), Jalen Graham (14), Marreon Jackson (12) and Jay Heath (10) all reached double figures scoring for Arizona State, but the Sun Devils finished 26-of-66 (39.4) from the floor and 5-of-22 (22.7) from 3-point range.
The Huskies built a sustainable lead quickly, getting contributions from several players.
Matthews opened what turned into a 23-7 run over the next nine minutes with a corner 3-pointer on one trip down the floor, and threw down an alley-oop dunk on a pass from Fuller on the next.
Jamal Bey scored the Huskies’ next five points, including another corner 3, to extend UW’s lead to double digits for the first time at the 15:05 mark.
Bajema and Brown — who reached double-digit scoring for the 22nd consecutive game in the first half with 11 of his points — both broke loose with Arizona State turnovers and converted as part of a 9-0 run midway through.
The lead reached as many as 20 points when Matthews connected on his second 3-pointer of the half to make it 39-19 with 4:48 left.
It seemed UW would comfortably cruise into the break, but the Sun Devils closed on a 13-3 run — including a trio of triples after they were previously scoreless from 3-point range — and cut the lead back to single digits on a Lawrence dunk with 1:06 to go.
The Huskies responded in the final moments, pushing the lead to double digits again when Nate Roberts hammered a dunk on a feed from Brown at the buzzer to make it 42-32.
Arizona State trimmed the lead seven points twice early in the second half, but UW regrouped from there.
Fuller scored 13 of his points in the second half, including two of his three 3-pointers, Matthews added two more triples, Brown and Bajema each scored eight of their points and Riley Sorn added three dunks.
UW pushed the lead as high as 27 on a pair of free throws from Bajema with 7:15 left.
“We’re getting better,” Hopkins said. “Tonight with Daejon not playing, other guys stepped up and played a huge role. I thought P.J. was great. I thought Cole was great. Riley Sorn came in and gave us really good minutes.”
This was only the second game this season the Huskies have switched up their starting rotation — both times when a regular starter did not appear — with Fuller replacing Davis, who was injured against Stanford, and ranks second in the Pac-12 with 2 steals per game, while adding 7.8 points and 2.8 assists.
Fuller’s 16 points were the most he has scored in a conference game this season, while the Huskies also added 20 points from their bench against Arizona State.
“When you lose a guy like of Daejon’s caliber for a game, how are these guys going to respond? I was really, really proud of them,” Hopkins said. “They shared it. We played good, solid defense. … They’re showing a lot of growth.“
UW wraps up its weekend by hosting conference leader and No. 4 Arizona (21-2, 11-1) Saturday afternoon before heading to Southern California next week. The Huskies dropped their first meeting with the Wildcats, 95-79, last month in Tucson.
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 10:21 PM.
