No. 16 Washington overwhelms Grambling State

SEATTLE – Competitive basketball was not played at Hec Edmundson Pavilion on Wednesday night.

The No. 16-ranked Washington Huskies made sure of that by demolishing the overmatched, undersized and overwhelmed Grambling State Tigers 86-38 to improve their record to 9-0.

That’s the Huskies’ best start to a season since 2005-06, when they began 11-0.

The game was decided in the first half, when the Huskies raced to a 17-3 lead behind a series of dunks from senior forward Shawn Kemp Jr., then celebrated Grambling’s second made field goal by ripping off an 18-0 run that made it 35-6 with 4:45 left in the first half.

By halftime, the Huskies led 45-13.

It didn’t get any closer. A 23-8 Huskies run greeted the Tigers to begin the second half. Washington’s largest lead was 81-30, and seldom-used walk-ons Dan Kingma, K.J. Garrett and Greg Bowman each logged playing time. Bowman and Kingma both scored.

Kemp led all scorers with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting, and didn’t play the final 10:22.

Sophomore point guard Nigel Williams-Goss added nine points, 11 assists and six rebounds in 33 minutes. Robert Upshaw scored 15 points while grabbing 15 rebounds in just 22 minutes.

Andrew Andrews (16 points) and Mike Anderson (10 points) also finished in double figures.

The Huskies dominated nearly every statistical category, including rebounds (52-27), field-goal percentage (50.0-24.1), second-chance points (26-5) and points in the paint (50-18).

The Tigers (2-7) have not defeated a Division I team this season.