Sophomore Koren Johnson scored a career-high 25 points to lead Washington to a season-opening 91-57 victory against Bellarmine on Monday night in Seattle.
Keion Brooks Jr. added 18 of his 22 points in the second half as the Huskies outscored the visitors 56-30 to pull away. Nate Calmese came off the bench and scored 13 points.
Bash Wieland paced Bellarmine with 14 points.
Peter Suder led the Knights with seven points in the first half, but suffered an apparent left ankle injury three minutes into the second and didn’t return.
Bellarmine guard Garrett Tipton, a preseason all-ASUN selection, was held scoreless on 0-for-7 shooting.
The Knights led for nearly nine minutes in the first half before Washington closed with a 13-2 run to take a 35-27 lead at the intermission. Johnson led the Huskies with nine points in the half, including a last-second 3-pointer from the top of the key.
The Huskies started one recruit out of high school, Johnson, and four transfers — Brooks (Kentucky), Paul Mulcahy (Rutgers), Moses Wood (Portland) and Wilhelm Breidenbach (Nebraska).
They meshed quickly, as the Huskies shot 62.1 percent from the field (36 of 58), including 10 of 20 from 3-point range.
Mulcahy scored nine points, grabbed eight rebounds and added seven assists.
Huskies coach Mike Hopkins has shelved his preferred zone for a man-to-man defense and his team limited the Knights to 34.4 percent shooting (21 of 61) and forced 20 turnovers. Washington also had a 36-28 edge on the boards.
Huskies center Braxton Meah, who led the Pac-12 by shooting 70.6 percent from the field last season, didn’t start because he’s still recovering from an ankle injury. He entered the game with 12:38 left in the first half but went back to the bench just 1:09 later after picking up two fouls and didn’t return.
Washington played without starting point guard Sahvir Wheeler, a transfer from Kentucky, because of an upper-body injury suffered in practice. Freshman guard Wesley Yates III, the Huskies’ top recruit, was unavailable because of an undisclosed injury.
–Field Level Media
