Huskies thrill large crowd with easy victory
Brandon Roy scored 23 points and Nate Robinson added 22 to lead No. 22 Washington to an 89-71 basketball victory over Seattle Pacific in the season opener for both Friday night at Seattle.
A near-sellout crowd of 9,851 turned out at the campus Bank of America Arena to see the team that delighted Seattle last season with a surprise second-place finish in the Pacific-10 Conference and went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999.
The Huskies didn’t disappoint their fans. Freshman Joel Smith scored 15 points, while 6-foot-8 forward Mike Jensen had 14 points and 13 rebounds.
Jordan Lee led the Falcons with 22 points, including six 3-pointers, while teammate Jason Chivers had 17 points, 15 in the second half.
The Huskies led 38-23 at halftime, scoring the final seven points in the final 2 minutes, 16 seconds on an offensive rebound putback by Jensen, a 3-pointer by Robinson and another offensive rebound putback by Jensen. That was their biggest lead of the opening half.
Stanford 93, San Francisco 83 (OT): At Oakland, Calif., Chris Hernandez scored nine of his 30 points in overtime and new coach Trent Johnson won his debut as the Cardinal (1-0) held off the Dons (0-1) at the Pete Newell Challenge.
Hernandez made 17 of 18 free throws, and Dan Grunfeld added 23 points and 11 rebounds as the Cardinal won their 17th straight season opener.
San Francisco sixth-year senior John Cox scored a career-high 33 points, including 11 straight in the final 1:50 of regulation. The Dons tied it on three straight free throws by Tyrone Riley with 11 seconds left.
Oregon 77, Idaho St. 51: At Eugene, Ore., Ian Crosswhite and Malik Hairston scored 15 points apiece to lead the Ducks past the Bengals in the season opener for both teams.
Crosswhite also had a game-high nine rebounds. Hairston was 7 of 10 from the field with five rebounds. His point total was the most for an Oregon freshman in his first start since 1995, when Terik Brown scored 26 against Hawaii. Bryce Taylor, another Ducks freshman, also started and scored 11 points.
Oregon State 65, Elon 55: Sasa Cuic scored 22 points, including a key steal and an ensuing three-point play in the second half, as the Beavers (2-1) defeated the Phoenix (1-2) in the third-place game of the BCA Invitational at Raleigh, N.C.
Chris Stephens added 16 points and reserve Marcel Jones had 10 for the Beavers, who never trailed after they scored 16 unanswered points late in the opening half.