Huskies return to court with win over Seattle U, led by Tacoma’s Emmitt Matthews Jr.
Emmitt Matthews Jr. jumped up, two hands behind his head, and slammed the ball into the hoop early in the second half.
That gave the Washington Huskies, in their return to Hec Edmundson Pavilion after a three-week pause, the game’s final lead over visiting Seattle U on Saturday night.
Then, less than two minutes later, the senior forward from Tacoma was in the air yet again, this time throwing down an alley-oop pass from Terrell Brown Jr. that energized the crowd.
The Huskies — who hadn’t played a game since Nov. 27 due to COVID-19 protocols in the program — pulled away from there, closing out a 64-56 win in their return to the court on Saturday night in Seattle.
Matthews, who returned to the Pacific Northwest this fall after spending three seasons at West Virginia, also keyed the 17-2 run to open the second half that put the Huskies in front for good.
He opened scoring after the break with two free throws on UW’s first possession, then added a dunk on a pass from Brown on their second, and less than a minute later connected on a 3-pointer out of a timeout to tie the game.
Seattle U took its final lead seconds later on a Darrion Trammell basket, but the Huskies answered with two tying free throws from Daejon Davis before Matthews gave them their decisive advantage with 17:09 left.
“They’re just huge,” Huskies coach Mike Hopkins said of the early plays that keyed UW’s run. “Our strength is our defense. We’ve got really good defensive players. And sometimes your best offense is what you get off of your defense. And that’s what happened tonight. We got a rhythm. We got some easy baskets. And that’s always really, really positive when you get those.
“And Emmitt was a recipient, and he’s been focused on going to the offensive glass, getting out in transition and he did a really good job. And then we’ve got really good guards that are advancing the ball and sharing it. And that’s when we’re at our best, for sure.”
The Huskies stayed in front from there, scoring often while Seattle U endured long droughts.
“I think overall we hate losing, and regardless of what happened in that second half, we all came in at halftime and said for this second half that we’re about to have, let’s just come out and win,” Matthews said. “Whatever it takes.”
And the Huskies did.
Matthews finished with a team-high 17 points, and completed a double-double with a team-high 11 rebounds.
Brown added 16 points, four rebounds and three assists, while P.J. Fuller had 11 points and Nate Roberts had eight points and pulled down 11 boards.
Riley Grigsby led all scorers with 20 points for the Redhawks, while Trammell had 18.
Looking much like a team that hadn’t seen the floor in 21 days, UW stumbled through the first half and entered the break trailing 35-28.
“The first half, I didn’t recognize the team,” Hopkins said. “But that’s, when you haven’t played in 21 days, it was one of those things. I felt like our practice was good. We didn’t have a good rhythm.”
Roberts scored the Huskies’ first points two minutes in on a contested short hook shot in the paint, and made the ensuing free throw to give UW its first lead early on, but it didn’t last long.
Seattle U built a double-digit lead midway through the first half behind Grigsby and Trammell. The Redhawks’ lead reached as high as 11 points on Trammell’s steal and layup at the 10:18 mark in the half.
UW shot well enough to cut it back to seven at the break, but struggled to find consistency early, missing its first eight 3-point attempts before P.J. Fuller — who led the Huskies with 10 points in the first half — hit a long attempt with less than two minutes remaining in the half.
The Huskies found more rhythm in the second half, and finished shooting 24-of-60 (40%) from the floor, though they connected on only 2-of-15 (13.3%) shots from 3-point range and 14-of-22 (63.6%) from the free throw line.
The win was the Huskies’ first in more than a month — they hadn’t posted a victory since topping South Dakota State in the Crossover Classic in Sioux Falls, S.D. on Nov. 23.
Two nonconference losses to Nevada and Winthrop followed.
Then, the Huskies, sitting at 4-4 to open their season, spent much of the next month away from the court, missing their next three nonconference games against ranked opponents.
Their scheduled Pac-12 opener against Arizona was postponed the first week of December and eventually rescheduled for Jan. 25.
They forfeited their conference home opener against UCLA.
And their trip to Spokane to play Gonzaga was canceled.
What was toughest about the unplanned break?
“For me it’s just not playing,” Brown said. “Watching games. Ours getting canceled or postponed or whatnot. Just not playing.
“I think we’re building something really special. It took a three-week delay, but I think we’re moving in the right direction.”
Now, after so much time away from the court, Saturday’s win begins to get the program back on track with conference play ahead.
The Huskies have one nonconference game remaining against Utah Valley on Tuesday in Seattle before heading to Pullman to open Pac-12 play against rival Washington State later this month.
This story was originally published December 18, 2021 at 9:20 PM with the headline "Huskies return to court with win over Seattle U, led by Tacoma’s Emmitt Matthews Jr.."
