UW Routs Tritons With Strong Rebounding, Timely Scoring

The Huskies picked up a one-sided victory at home even without a veteran starter.

Washington didn’t have the shooting form it hoped for early on, but the basketball team used a strong rebounding performance to gain a 10-point lead at halftime and never wavered on Tuesday night by running away with a 83-56 victory at home against UC San Diego. 

The Huskies (4-2) had four players in double figures, led by forward Keion Brooks Jr., who finished with a game-high 18 points on 7-of-16 shooting from the floor. 

Kentucky transfer point guard Sahvir Wheeler was right behind him with 17 points; senior center Braxton Meah added 14 points and sophomore guard Koren Johnson put in 14 points in his second start of the season. 

Johnson opened in place of Rutgers transfer Paul Mulcahy, who wasn't available. He previously was starter in the season opener against Bellarmine, scoring 25 points when he stepped in for an injured Wheeler. 

UW coach Mike Hopkins said after the game that Mulcahy could have played against the Tritons, without offering any further explanation, and is expected to return Saturday when the Huskies face No. 20 Colorado State in Las Vegas. 

Both UW and UC San Diego struggled throughout the first half to find much offense before the Huskies began to separate themselves.

"I felt like our defense was really good in the first part of the game," Hopkins said. "But our offense, you could tell, needed some WD-40."

At halftime, the Tritons (4-3) had hit just 8 of 32 shots from the floor with multiple scoring droughts lasting for more than three minutes. 

Johnson played 12 sloppy minutes in the first half and scored a single point, drawing the frustration of UW assistant coach Quincy Pondexter, who appeared to spike a bunched-up towel behind his sideline chair after Johnson airmailed a pass intended for senior guard Anthony Holland.  

"You could see the guys pressing a little bit," Hopkins added. "At halftime, we just talked about having fun, smiling. We were making some outlet passes going out of bounds. The ball was slipping out of our hands. It was just one of those nights."

On Monday, Hopkins had said he wanted to see his team improve its all-around rebounding output and he got what he asked for — the Huskies out-rebounded the Tritons 26-18 in the opening half.

"We've just been drilling it every day in practice," Meah said. "We've been doing triangle rebounding, every day. It's been painful, but it's working out. It's getting us better, so we gotta keep doing it."

Coming out of intermission both schools were still off, combining to make just 3-of-14 shots in the first five minutes of the second half. 

The Huskies finally settled in and began to pull away. When senior center Franck Kepnang rebounded his own miss and put up an old-school sky hook for two, the UW led 44-30 with 14:51 remaining. 

After the Tritons' Justin DeGraaf knocked down his second 3-pointer of the game, UC San Diego scored just 11 points over the next eight minutes and the UW stretched its lead to 66-44. 

"I began to sense it when they fouled three times in a row and I got to the free throw line a couple times," Wheeler said with a laugh, when asked when he felt the game turned in UW's favor in the second half. 

The lead grew to 30 points in the final minutes as the Huskies won for the fourth time.

With pair of former Husky big men Marquese Chriss and Spencer Hawes in attendance at Alaska Airlines Arena, the team finished with a season-high 54 rebounds, 19 on the offensive end. 

The last time UW reached 50-plus rebounds in a single game was on Nov. 9, 2021, against Northern Illinois when the Huskies had 51 boards in a 71-64 defeat. 

This ties the second most rebounds in Hopkins' tenure as coach. The previous highs came in the coach's first season in 2016-17 against Gonzaga and Western Kentucky, when the UW hauled down 54 and 60 rebounds, respectively. 

J'Raan Brooks, former Garfield High School standout and ex-UW forward, had more personal fouls than points and rebounds combined against his former school before fouling out with 11:45 remaining in the second half. He sat down scoreless with a rebound.

UW takes to the road again on Saturday to face No. 20 Colorado State in Las Vegas. 

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