#22 Washington Pulls Away Late for 81-59 Win over Seattle

It looked like it might never happen but #22 Washington pulled away with a 23-5 run in the final 5+ minutes to turn a tight game throughout into a laughter late. Seattle had no answer for Isaiah Stewart as he physically dominated the Redhawks all night in the 81-59 Husky win. Washington improves to 8-2 on the season while Seattle U falls to 6-6.

The Huskies started out in zone and Seattle set the tone by running a set play for an alley oop dunk on the 1st possession. The Redhawks made 4 of their first 5 shots with one throw away in between.

Washington kept pace as Quade Green was extremely aggressive and had 7 points in the first 4 minutes to give UW a 10-9 lead. Elijah Hardy came in for him at the 1st timeout and immediately got 2 assists on a nice drive and kick for a Bey 3 and a feed to Isaiah Stewart in transition for an and-1. Hardy looked like he had another assist after a pretty bounce pass in the pick and roll but Stewart expected contact and missed a wide open layup. Seattle's Terrell Brown though hit a 3-pointer and nailed a tough floater to put them on top 17-16 at the under 12 timeout.

The scoring slowed down a little as Seattle U started missing some of their floaters. But Washington turned it over in transition multiple times which led to one wide open Seattle layup. Fouls started to pile up in Washington's favor though and at one point it was 6-1 as Washington held on to a 2-3 point lead throughout the middle of the 1st half.

Terrell Brown kept hitting shots for Seattle and tied the game at 28 with a tough floater to give him 13 in the first 15 minutes. The Washington offense collapsed at the end of the half as they went the final 6:36 without a made field goal with only 4 made free throws to show for it. Washington had 5 turnovers in that span and gave up 4 offensive rebounds. That allowed Seattle to take the lead into halftime at 33-32.

Quade Green hit a 3 on a nice McDaniels cross court pass to open the 2nd half and Isaiah Stewart beat his man down low one of the only times he wasn't immediately double teamed. Terrell Brown continued to penetrate whenever he wanted and the Huskies were incapable of stretching out a lead. Seattle hit a corner 3 with Stewart closing out hard as it appeared UW was set to make a mini run.

Elijah Hardy came in and again made some nice plays with a crossover midrange jumper and a feed to Bey for a dunk with 1 on the shot clock. Sam Timmins entered for Isaiah Stewart and gave up a layup after jumping to contest on a pump fake when UW had just opened up their largest lead of the game at 50-44.

Washington caught a bit of a break as Seattle starting big man Myles Carter left the game multiple times in the 2nd half with an apparent leg injury which clearly hampered him. His backup quickly burned through 5 fouls and exited for good with 8.5 minutes to go leaving no one with a chance at bodying Isaiah Stewart. Shortly after Hameir Wright finally drained a 3-pointer on his 5th attempt to put the Dawgs up 55-50 with 8:16 remaining.

After a ridiculous buzzer beating fade away by Brown, Isaiah Stewart made a pair of baskets set up by Wright and McDaniels with the first resulting in an and-1. The quick 5-0 run put Washington up 9 at 63-54 and brought the crowd to life for the first time all game.

Despite a Seattle timeout to quiet the crowd Stewart got a ridiculous fingertip put back to put UW up double digits. Of course as it had gone all night Seattle immediately answered with a 3-pointer and they called their second timeout in 40 seconds of game clock.

Quade Green answered with a tough and-1 layup but missed the free throw. However Isaiah Stewart got the miss and laid it in for essentially a 4-point play. Naz Carter blocked a shot and answered on the other end with a pair of FTs to put things out of reach at 14 points with 2:30 left in the game. Seattle went cold the rest of the way and a McDaniels 3 and Carter dunk meant the Huskies somehow won by a margin of over 20 points.

Isaiah Stewart led Washington with a dominant performance of 27 points and 13 rebounds. Quade Green added 20 points on 7/8 shooting.

The Huskies next play on Sunday night against Ball State in the opening round of the Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii. They will be the most talented team at the event and 3 wins to close out the non-conference schedule would go a long way come Selection Sunday.

They will need to play better than they did for the first 35 minutes tonight when they had just 1 offensive rebound during that time.

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