Oregon State gave Washington all they wanted early in the first half on Saturday night, but the Beavers couldn't hang with the Huskies in the second half, who took a seven point halftime lead and turned it into a 26 point victory. The Huskies move to 13-4 and 4-1 on the season with the win, and the Beavers fall to 6-10 on the season, and 1-5 in Pac-10 play.
Josh Tarver's fast-break layup with 11:35 remaining gave the Beavers a seven point lead, their largest of the night. The Beavers stayed with in earshot of the Huskies for a few more minutes, but it was Justin Dentmon's three-point field goal with 4:47 remaining in the first half that gave the Huskies the lead for good. There were six lead changes in the game, all coming in the first sixteen minutes of play.
Coming out of halftime, the Huskies began to shoot the ball with extreme accuracy, pushing farther ahead into what quickly became a double-digit lead. The Beavers answered with baskets of their own, but they simply came less frequently. The Huskies scored on their first 12 possessions of the second half, building a 26 point lead in the first 11 minutes of the half. Their largest lead of the game was 27, coming with just under six minutes remaining in the game.
"We did a good job at guarding and we got the ball inside." Lorenzo Romar said of the second half run. "We didn't just settle for the three-point bombs, we got the ball inside too. We also charged the glass hard and got a lot of boards."
Oh, about that. The Beavers were manhandled down low, being out-rebounded 46-19 on the game, and 17-10 on the offensive boards. I suppose that's expected when going up against such a good rebounding team like the Huskies, who average 46.9 boards per game. Jon Brockman and Matt Bryan-Armaning each had nine rebounds for Washington. Oregon State's leading rebounder, Daniel Deane, had six. Also, the Huskies scored 50 points in the paint, the Beavers only scored 26 down low.
Seth Tarver led the Beavers in scoring, accumulating a season-high 16 points. Lathen Wallace finished with 13, while Calvin Haynes and Omari Johnson each had eight.
Although there were many positives to take away from the first part of the game, the negatives in the second half seem to outweigh the positives.
"I think they did a great job of taking us out of what we were trying to do," Coach Robinson said of the Huskies in the second half. "We did a good job of imposing our will [in the first half], but then they said 'this is enough of that', and they started being much more physical, and we unfortunately crumbled under it."
Five Huskies scored in double-digits in the game, with Brockman leading the pack with 16 points.
Washington returns to Seattle to host UCLA and USC this week, while Oregon State heads to the Bay Area to play Cal and Stanford.
--Jake (jake.buildingthedam@gmail.com)