UW shows purple heart

LOS ANGELES – Maybe it was desperation.

Maybe it was the purple uniforms.

Whatever it was, the Washington Huskies halted their two-game Pacific-10 Conference losing streak Thursday with a much-needed 86-77 men’s basketball win over Southern California.

“We already knew coming into this game our backs were against the walls,” said Bobby Jones, who matched his career high with 22 points. “We were 1-2 in conference and you don’t want to start off conference slow and kind of put yourself in a corner.”

The Huskies wore purple for the first time this season because this was their first road trip of the season.

“Give our guys a lot of credit in their first road game,” UW coach Lorenzo Romar said. “There were a lot of questions about how we would handle it. I thought we did a pretty good job of it.

“Tonight we played 40 minutes of hard-nosed basketball, which is what we have to do consistently to be an effective basketball team.”

Any road jitters Washington might have felt showed up in ball-handling, as the Huskies committed a season-high 28 turnovers. Freshman Justin Dentmon, playing in his collegiate first road game, had seven turnovers. So did Jones, a senior.

Washington compensated by dominating the boards, outrebounding USC 46-24.

“That kind of offset (the turnovers) a little bit,” Romar said. “I cringed when I heard that number (of) turnovers. But (USC was) scrappy. When we play them again we’re going to have to make sure we take care of that part.”

The 13th-ranked Huskies (13-2, 2-2) evened their Pac-10 record by dominating early and late.

Washington instantly attacked the Trojans’ weakness – it’s frontcourt – by repeatedly working the ball low and then flying to the glass like a team that couldn’t afford a third conference loss.

The strategy worked early as the Huskies jumped to a 12-2 lead in the first 4 minutes.

Once USC started bunching inside, Jones, Brandon Roy and reserve Mike Jensen made them pay from the outside and the UW lead grew to 20-4 after 6 minutes.

Washington never surrendered the lead, but USC (11-5, 2-3) wouldn’t go down easily.

The Trojans surged back into the game when sophomore guard Gabe Pruitt went on a 3-point frenzy midway through the second half. That sparked a run that chipped the Huskies’ lead into single digits, finally putting some life into the crowd of 4,561 in the Sports Arena.

When the lead slipped to 73-70, Jones and Jensen each hit key 3-points within a matter of seconds, and suddenly there was breathing room again: 81-72.