Washington Survives Another Slow Start to Beat Northern Kentucky

The Huskies basketball program improved to 2-0 after defeating the Norse at home Thursday night.

Sahvir Wheeler tossed up an alley-oop pass to Keion Brooks Jr., who threw down a two-handed slam dunk on the opening possession for Washington against Northern Kentucky, an early sign of who would provide the scoring Thursday night. 

Wheeler, a Kentucky graduate transfer, made his UW debut at point guard and reunited with his former teammate to lift the Huskies to a 75-67 victory over the Norse at Alaska Airlines Arena. 

The former Southeastern Conference duo combined to score 50 points for coach Mike Hopkins on a night when there wasn't much else from the rest of the UW roster. 

Brooks finished with 32 points, a career high, after knocking down a pair of late free throws to ice the game for the Huskies. Wheeler added 18 points in his first competitive game since February 3, 2023, at Kentucky. 

No other UW player scored more than seven points Thursday night. 

"For this game I wanted to come in and let the game come to me, which happened really quickly to start of the game with a lob, dunk and one," Brooks said. "So after that I was feeling good."

His scoring total against Northern Kentucky eclipsed his previous record of 30 points against Cal Poly last December, and he did it just as efficiently, shooting 11 of 16 from the floor while adding 10 rebounds. 

That gave Brooks his seventh double-double in his UW career. He came into the game wanting to not only score, but make an impact on the glass at both ends of the court. 

"The main thing I wanted to do, I wanted to come in and rebound," Brooks said. "I only had three rebounds last game. I pride myself on being a high-level rebounder. I feel like I did that tonight. So I got to continue to keep that up because once we get rebounds we can get out and run."

Wheeler saw a cutting Brooks and fed him with 3:52 remaining to give the forward an even 30 points, tying his previous career high, as the forward threw down another alley-oop dunk to push the Huskies' lead to 70-62. 

"It damn near feels like we got a hive mind," Brooks said of his connection with Wheeler. "I know where to be at. I don't know, obviously we played together before. He does a great job keeping everybody involved."

Brooks provided the first six points of the game before 6-foot-10  junior forward Wilhelm Breidenbach added 5, including a wide open 3-pointer, to extend the lead to 11-5 in just over four minutes. 

Aside from the Nebraska transfer knocking his shot from deep down, the Huskies struggled from behind the arc. UW made only a single 3-point attempt in its first 7 attempts in the first nine minutes of the game. 

Northern Kentucky capitalized on UW's inability to find the bottom of the net by going on a 9-0 scoring run to grab the lead, 19-14, with 8:22 remaining in the first half. 

The Norse's lead didn't last thanks to Wheeler and Brooks closing out the final eight minutes of the first half with a combined 15 points to give UW a 41-35 lead at intermission. 

Senior center Braxton Meah made his season debut by coming off the bench and scoring 4 points and hauled down 5 rebounds in six first-half minutes. 

Meah played nine total minutes against Northern Kentucky with fellow senior center Franck Kepnang playing more minutes in the second half. 

With 14:29 remaining in the game, Brooks matched his scoring total of 22 points from the season opener against Bellarmine, converting a free throw to give UW its largest lead of the game at 56-44. 

The Huskies controlled the energy flow defensively late in the second half, forcing the Norse into just 1 made shot in 7 attempts over a five-minute stretch late in the contest before a final push from Northern Kentucky. 

"Good defense disrupts flow and rhythm, and that definitely did that for us tonight," Hopkins said. "We need to get more organized at the end. We were I thought playing and getting in good rhythm, but we had to get a little more organized. When we were organized we scored. We'll get better at that."

Despite shooting just 3 of 17 from 3-point territory, Hopkins was pleased with the overall shot selection from deep against the Norse. 

UW returns to Alaska Airlines Arena on Sunday when the basketball team hosts Nevada at 7 p.m. 

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