Washington used a bombardment of 3-pointers and the best inside play senior Perris Blackwell exhibited this season to rout Idaho State 85-66 Saturday at Alaska Airlines Arena. Idaho State cut what had been a double-digit deficit to 70-65 with 7:02 to play, but Washington went on a 15-1 spree to improve to 5-4.
The Huskies knocked down 10 of 21 3-point shots, including five by C.J. Wilcox and two by Andrew Andrews. Encountering a smallish Idaho State squad, Blackwell led the Huskies with 20 points, getting most of his total within two feet of the hoop.
Blackwell, who also had seven rebounds, led four Washington players in double figures. Wilcox had 19, Andrews 17 and Nigel Williams-Goss 13 and five assists.
Andrews made the two biggest plays, converting a four-point play (3-pointer, free throw) with 10:34 remaining in the first half that sparked a 13-2 Washington run, and scoring a put-back basket with seven minutes to play that ended a 7-0 Idaho State run and ignited the Huskies’ game-closing run.
“Andrew was dialed in,” said UW head coach Lorenzo Romar. “He was kind of the catalyst for our energy.”
Washington entered permitting an average of 84.1 points and allowed the Bengals to shoot 56 percent in the first half, but tightened its defense in the second half. Idaho State ended with a 46.2 shooting percentage. Washington was 55.2 percent from 2-point range and 47.6 from 3-point range. The Huskies also made 11 of 13 free throws and won the battle of the boards, 31-21.
“I was a little concerned with this (Idaho State) team and how we were going to handle them,” said Romar. “I was concerned about their zone, but we did a nice job attacking it. I have to compliment on our guys on their poise. I think we are getting better and we did a better job on the defensive end today. We are improving.”
“We were trying to take advantage of what they were giving us, the gaps in their zone,” said Blackwell, who had five offensive rebounds and made 9 of 11 shots. “I just wanted to play better than I did at San Diego State (3-for-9), and make sure that I finished my plays.”
The teams were even for the first 10 minutes. But Andrews’ four-point play sent the Huskies off on an 13-2 run for a 34-23 lead. They maintained the margin the rest of the way, leading 46-35 at intermission.
Washington drilled seven of its 10 3-pointers in the first 10 minutes and also exploited the size of Blackwell and Shawn Kemp Jr. Blackwell had 10 points after scoring six in Washington’s last game at San Diego State.
The Huskies would have had a far larger lead if they had been able to play effective one-on-one defense, especially on Idaho State’s dribble drives.
Tomas Sanchez, a Shorewood High graduate, scored 14 points and Jeffrey Solarin matched that total off the bench for Idaho State, which suited only nine players. Sanchez had four steals while Solarin had six rebounds and two assists. Sanchez, though, scored only four points in the second half as the injury-depleted Bengals ran out of gas.
NEXT: The Huskies travel to New Orleans for a Tuesday (5 p.m., PT) date with the Tulane Green Wave of Conference USA. The Huskies have never faced Tulane. Washington will host No. 9 Connecticut Sunday.
4 Comments
Finally a game where the team played to its potential but still some concerns. Coach Romar so far is not using his bench much which means he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in it right now. That might change later on but if it doesn’t then all the cross country travel they’ve been doing this early in the season will catch up with the team and they’ll be exhausted down the stretch. Usually Coach Romar likes a strong non-conference schedule to prepare the team for PAC-12 play and probably to strengthen their RPI but right now they’re at the bottom of the conference for that. Heck, Eastern Washington has a better RPI right now.
Interesting that Anderson never got a shot off tonight and Kemp had only two boards when he wasn’t in foul trouble however the team was making its shots. Even more so than last season the team will be leaning heavily on CJ this season.
“Coach Romar likes a strong non-conference schedule?” Seriously? I usually agree with you, jafabian, but not on that point. Romar annually loads the December schedule with low-caliber opponents at Hec Ed with 3 or 4 games against good D1 schools NOT named Gonzaga. Not one of those five wins thus far is against a major conference school (three Big Sky teams and a WAC program)…reality is going to hit very hard when UConn comes in next Sunday.
I like Lorenzo Romar on a personal level because he seems like a genuinely decent guy and he’s a fairly good coach who’s had his share of success at the UW (I haven’t forgotten how things were when he came in from St. Louis), but when it comes to strong non-conference schedules, he is no Mark Few.
Look who’ve they’ve had scheduled. Yes Idaho State is on it but UConn, Long Beach State, Indiana, Boston College, San Diego State…those are all strong programs. In fact except for both Idaho State and Mississippi Valley all their non-conference opponents were in a post season tournament last season. If you look back at previous seasons the scheduling has been consistent in that manner for UW. With the knock on them being their RPI the past few years I doubt Woodward would let Coach Romar get away with loading up the schedule with weak teams. And a good coach would want his team ready for conference play when it starts and you do that with quality opponents.
Lorenzo knows this team isn’t ready to take on Kentucky or Duke but will schedule a Long Beach and UConn. There might have a swap in there for all we know as well.
He is running a 1990’s UAB program. Today’s game has hopelessly passed him by.