Like so many times this season at Hec Ed, the Huskies found themselves in a tight game down the stretch. This time against the 5-4 Loyola Marymount Lions. After a Steven Haney 4-point play, LMU took a 66-64 lead with 5:38 remaining. For the next couple of minutes the Huskies and Lions would trade punches until Noah Dickerson had enough.
The 6-foot-8 junior took over the game, scoring 13 of UW’s final 15 points in the final 4:48 of the game – leading UW to a 80-77 victory.
“This team has grown in so many ways and I give them a lot of credit for fighting down (the stretch),” Coach Hopkins said after the game.”It could have gone either way. They made the plays that they had too.”
Washington would go on an 11-0 run shortly after starting the second half after trailing at halftime 34-28.The second half burst was in large part due to using a full court 2-2-1 zone that LMU was slow to react. The Lions were sped up and the Huskies were forcing turnover after turnover igniting the 4,856 fans at Hed Ed.
“We decided to try to press the tempo a little bit,” coach Hopkins said about what the talk was at halftime facing a 34-28 deficit.”We’ve been working on our 2-2-1 (zone press) a lot but it’s been more of trying to take time off the clock. We were able to be really aggressive out of it and it created some steals, some turnovers, got the crowd involved a little bit, got some easy baskets, got the energy back, got a flow. You know some times it can get stagnant and I thought that was really, really good for us.”
After Noah Dickerson put Washington in a position to close the game, UW turned to freshman Jaylen Nowell with the game on the line. With UW leading 74-72, the freshman dribbled the shot clock down to around 38 seconds before making his way to the basket and made a difficult fade-away 10-footer with a defender in his face, to give UW a 76-72 lead with 31.2 seconds remaining.
Despite the close win, head coach Mike Hopkins wants this team to put teams away when they have a chance to.
“But we just can’t keep putting ourselves in those situations,” Hopkins said.”There’s so many times where we get up seven or we make a great run and then we just give it back.”
Washington was led by Jaylen Nowell’s 21 points. Noah Dickerson added 20 points and 8 rebounds. Matisse Thybulle finished with 10 points.
The Huskies improved to 8-3 on the season, while LMU fell to 5-5.
Washington next hosts Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The game will air the Pac-12 Network.
