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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

TCU tops Huskies in Vegas tourney

From staff and wire reports

The Washington Huskies (4-2) dug a big first-half hole Saturday night and couldn’t recover, falling to TCU (6-0), 93-80, in the championship game of the Global Sports Classic in Las Vegas.

Freshman star Markelle Fultz led the Huskies with 27 points, but spent most of the second half on the bench with foul trouble.

He picked up his fifth with seven minutes to go.

Early on this wasn’t the Washington team that overwhelmed Western Kentucky in the second half Friday night.

The Huskies missed eight of their first nine shots during the game’s first seven minutes and had two rebounds to TCU’s 11 as the Horned Frogs ran out to a 19-4 lead.

For each successive Huskies rally, TCU had an answer.

Fultz keyed a 13-3 second-half run when he hit a three-pointer and then brought the sparse Washington-leaning crowd to its feet with a steal and dunk.

But on the next trip down the floor he picked up his fourth foul when he tripped TCU freshman point guard Jaylen Fisher diving for a loose ball. There were almost 15 minutes left when Fultz went to the bench.

Noah Dickerson scored six of Washington’s next eight points to cut the Horned Frogs’ lead to 54-52, the closest the Huskies had been since the game’s first two minutes.

But TCU responded, quickly stretching the lead back to 11 on a run that was finished off by back-to-back three pointers.

When Fultz returned, the Huskies were down by 15.

Dickerson had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and David Crisp scored 14 points for Washington.

Alex Robinson led TCU with a career-high 24 points.

Karviar Shepherd added 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting both from the field and free-throw line for TCU, which never trailed. Vladimir Brodziansky contributed 12 points, Kenrich Williams had 11 and Fisher 10 for the Horned Frogs.

In a scheduling quirk, the two teams meet again on Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas.

UNLV 71, Western Kentucky 61: Also at the tourney, Tyrell Green scored 23 points with seven rebounds as the Rebels (4-2) held on late to beat the Hilltoppers (3-3).

Green was 8 of 12 from the field including five 3-pointers for the Rebels. Jalen Poyser added 22 points and nine assists and Dwayne Morgan chipped in eight points with six rebounds.

UNLV led early and was up 21-11 with 6:17 left in the half. But the Hilltoppers surged to pull ahead 24-23 on a 3-pointer by Que Johnson and they led 30-28 at the break.

In the second half Poyser and Jovan Mooring made back-to-back 3-pointers to lift UNLV into lead again, 46-38, with 11:59 to play. The teams battled until a Mooring layup and a Green 3-pointer gave the Rebels a 58-52 edge with 5:12 to go and they held on for the win.

Johnson led the Hilltoppers with 16 points.

CC Spokane 84, Lower Columbia 71: Levi Taylor scored 26 points with six rebounds and five assists to help the Sasquatch top the Red Devils in the Red Devil Classic in Longview, Washington.

CCS (2-0) will face Everett, which knocked off Centralia 96-81 earlier, on Sunday at 4 p.m. in the championship game.

Taylor was 3 of 9 from beyond the arc and had two steals. Cesar Sandoval had 16 points with eight boards while three others – George Williams, George Pilimai and Garrett Hull – all added 10 points apiece.

Keun Palu-Thompson and Marcus Lord led Lower Columbia with 16 points apiece.