SU Drops Huskies With Neighborhood Knockout Punch

It was a fight over a parking spot in Lower Queen Anne. Two groups swing at each other at Dick Drive-In. A serious temper tantrum outside Buckley's.

Yes, put it in the hoop win column for the other guys -- without style points.

On Friday night, the University of Washington and Seattle U engaged in a bruising turf war downtown. Trading elbows. Shoves that weren't detected. Bad breath that was.

After a couple hours of pretending to be hockey teams at Climate Pledge Arena, it was the Redhawks who took their sticks and went home with a 70-66 victory over the Huskies.

Yes, put it in the hoop win column for the other guys -- without style points.

"The aggressor won," UW coach Danny Sprinkle conceded. "They were the more physical team."

It wasn't pretty by any means, deserving of some penalty-box minutes for sure, but a gritty Seattle U (10-2) team hung a second consecutive loss on the UW (7-4) for the first time in the history of the series.

Austin Maurer broke a 62-all tie by cutting to the hoop for a lay-in and the lead for good with 1:03 remaining. Maurer, a 7-foot transfer from Grand Canyon and originally from Medford, Oregon, led his team with 19 points.

"I thought their big guys dominated our bigs," Sprinkle said.

Neither team could hit from 3-point range with any kind of touch at all: SU went 3-for-22 and the Huskies hit just one of 15.

The UW's Desmond Claude led all scorers with 24 points. He took just two treys and missed each one.

To make matters worse, the Huskies lost fellow starting guard Wesley Yates III to a first-half hand injury and he played just 11 minutes. He'll be examined on Saturday to see how extensive the damage is.

Typical of this engagement early on, Yates put up a close-in shot left of the rim and SU's Maurer swatted it back to him.

I thought their big guys dominated our bigs, Sprinkle said.

With his back to the basket, Yates finally just took the ball, flipped it up over his head and it banked in.

By halftime, the Redhawks collected 7 blocked shots to zero for the Huskies, but still trailed 29-26. They finished with 10 rejected balls to just one for the UW, redirecting shots from start to finish.

Seattle U let go of 6 airballs over the first 20 minutes to none for the UW and was still down by just 3

The teams were never separated by more than six points before the break.

The Redhawks win two consecutive games for the first time in the series.

"It's going to be physical," Claude said of coming Big Ten play. "Probably more physical than this."

The Redhawks simply buckled their seat belts and answered every bump with a bump, each rib shot with another.

The Huskies actually crept out to a nine-point lead, the last time at 40-31 on Claude's high bank shot nnwith 15:35 left in the game, but SU came rushing back and wouldn't let go.

"We've got to be tougher," Claude said.

The Huskies return to action on Monday night against San Diego with a 7 p.m. tip.

Anything but a basketball game:

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