Huskies Prevail in Sloppy 61-47 Win Over OSU

Stephen Curry helped revolutionize the sport of basketball and ushered in an offensive explosion. I'm sorry to report that tonight's Washington-Oregon State game set back the game of basketball several decades and we will now be returning to clogged toilet sets and midrange jumpers. Each side has 17+ turnovers and shot worse than 36% from the field as the Huskies came out on top from the rock fight 61-47. The win improves the Huskies to 15-13 on the season.

Washington struggled on offense early but took advantage of second and third attempts. Jamal Bey missed his first two 3's before making his 3rd attempt to put UW on the board. The first lob attempt from Menfield to Brooks resulted in a turnover but the second ended up with a Brooks slam.

Menifield took over the scoring with 8 straight points for UW including an and-1 layup, a 3-pointer, and a long 2 with a foot on the line. Oregon State slowly cut into the lead after a trio of Husky turnovers. That included Meah getting called for a travel after falling to the ground amid contact and a bang-bang charge going against Cole Bajema. Jordan Pope hit a transition 3 to bring the score back to 15-8 UW with 12 minutes left in the 1st half.

Koren Johnson added a layup while OSU managed a few baskets in the paint but the story of the game became the turnovers. The Beavers had shot clock violations on consecutive possessions leading into the under 8 media timeout. Meanwhile a pair of Huskies missed the front end of 1-amd-1 free throw opportunities. Finally, Braxton Meah made a pair on OSU's 9th foul to end the UW scoring drought of more than 5 minutes. Immediately following Koren Johnson stole the ball and got it ahead to Jamal Bey who drained a 3 and forced a Wayne Tinkle timeout with UW up 22-14.

The turnover show continued until mercifully it hit halftime with the Huskies up 26-18. Both teams hit the break with at least 3 more turnovers than made field goals. Keion Menifield was the only player on either end to have made at least half of his field goal attempts.

UW failed to score in their first 4 possessions out of half but then they suddenly converted on 3 straight over the course of just over a minute. OSU took timeout to try to stop the quick 7-0 run with UW up 33-20.

A 4-point OSU possession did indeed end the Husky run but OSU couldn't cut into the UW lead much. Koren Johnson hit a 3-pointer then got to the FT line for 2 to extend the lead back out to 15 points at 44-29 with 11:30 left.

The Husky offense went back into a patented funk which allowed the Beavers to get within single digits. Oregon State's 7-0 run over nearly 4 minutes got them down 8 before Braxton Meah finally got ahold of a lob and slammed it home. Immediately after though Keioj Brooks picked up his 4th personal foul trying to trap on the inbounds and took a seat.

OSU continued to chip away and Hop called timeout with UW's lead suddenly down to just 6 with 5:50 remaining. Keion Brooks came back in and eventually made a 3 which was just UW's 3rd made field goal over an 8-minute span. That sparked an 9-0 Husky run in 2 minutes that put UW up by 15 with 2 minutes left to clinch a Husky win.

Jamal Bey ended up Washington's leading scorer with 15 points as one of 5 Huskies in double figures. No one else had any points for UW as Cole Bajema started but went scoreless and Koren Johnson had 11 points (and 5 steals) off the bench. Keyon Menifield had 12 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists but had his sloppiness game as a Dawg with 6 turnovers.

UW shot just 6/24 on 3-point tries but OSU was an abysmal 2/19 with one of those coming in the final minute. Free throws largely decided the game as UW had a 17-5 edge in made foul shots. The 2 missed front ends in the first half were UW's only misfires.

Now the Huskies travel for the Bay Area road trip beginning on Thursday night at 6p against 12th place Cal.