SEATTLE -- Coming off a rare sweep in the desert, Lorenzo Romar wanted to see how his Washington squad would handle success. They'll head back out on the road riding a five-game win streak and as the clear leaders of the Pac-12 Conference. Tony Wroten played through a painful deep thigh bruise to score 13 points, hand out eight assists and grab six rebounds, and the Huskies kept hold on first place in the Pac-12 by pulling away for a 69-41 win over Southern California on Saturday night. Aesthetically, Washington's (16-7, 9-2 Pac-12) seventh win in its last eight games had more ugly than memorable moments. It became the grinding style that Romar had cautioned USC liked to play, and his squad would need patience if they eventually were to pull away. "Trust me, it's in the back of our mind that we're in the driver's seat right now, but when you're in the driver's seat everybody is coming for you," Wroten said. "At the end of the day, we work hard and focus on the next team." Wroten sat the final seven minutes of Thursday's comeback win over UCLA due to his injured thigh, and Romar was uncertain if his star guard would play. What the freshman produced was one of his more efficient performances of the season, with five offensive rebounds and just one turnover. Terrence Ross added 10 points and 14 rebounds, and while he was the only other Huskies player in double figures, 11 of the 13 who saw action scored. Washington got a combined 28 points and 16 rebounds out of the frontcourt quartet of Aziz N'Diaye, Shawn Kemp, Jr., Austin Seferian-Jenkins and Darnell Gant. The win sets up a huge road trip for the Huskies that begins Thursday night at Oregon. Washington closes the season with five of its final seven Pac-12 games on the road, but is off to its best conference start since beginning 10-2 in 2005. The Huskies will have a chance to match that mark against the Ducks. The schedule played out just how Romar wanted for his young roster, with the front-end of the conference slate loaded with home games and the backend filled with road tests. "When I looked at the big picture with our schedule, and I saw that we were home-game heavy earlier in the schedule, I thought, with our team, that's exactly what we needed because I thought we might be able to trick a couple of teams until we started to get better," Romar said. "If this would have been reversed, if we would have had five out of seven on the road early, our record would be far different because we weren't ready for that. But now I think we're a little more prepared to handle what we're about to face. I'm not making any predictions; I just think we're a little more prepared to handle it." Garrett Jackson led the Trojans (6-18, 1-10) with 15 points. USC missed its first 14 3-point attempts, shot only 29 percent and went scoreless for more than six minutes of the second half as Washington ran away. USC got Jackson's points, 12 from Byron Wesley and eight from Maurice Jones. That was about it as Washington allowed its fewest points in a conference game since 1996. USC didn't hit a 3-pointer until 1:18 remained. "If we made some shots or layups or free throws in the first 30 minutes, I mean ... we had good looks," USC coach Kevin O'Neill said. "Greg Allen is 1 for 10 from (3-point range), and if we don't shoot the ball any better now, we are not going to win. Toward the end during the last eight minutes, it just got worse. We don't have the numbers with all the injuries and losses in recruiting classes and all of that. It's just the way it is." Washington's late 12-0 spurt finally blew the game open. Wroten had a lob to Ross and a breakaway dunk by seldom-used freshman Martin Breunig with 5:33 left that built a 23-point lead. Romar emptied the bench in the closing minutes. The blowout was a long time coming. USC, who had as many people on its bench in suits and collared shirts as it did players suited up for Saturday's game, managed to stick around through the first half, when Washington seemed on the verge of the rout it eventually became. Washington rattled off 15 of 17 points midway through the second half, a stretch that started with Kemp's rattling lob dunk. The Huskies led 21-11 and held USC to one field goal over a nearly-seven-minute span, but Washington could never completely pull away. The Trojans got the deficit down to six, but went into the break trailing 29-19 after Wroten followed up two of his own misses with a tip-in just before the halftime horn.
To add a comment, please register or login.