Daejon Davis was asked about transferring to Washington with three other players with local ties, hoping to revive a Huskies program that won just five games last season.
“You don’t come home to put on a poor performance in front of your family,” Davis, a guard who scored more than 1,000 career points at Stanford, told The Seattle Times.
Except that’s what the Huskies did in losing their season opener 71-64 to Northern Illinois on Tuesday night.
Washington, which plays host to Northern Arizona on Thursday, shot 26.7 percent from the field (20 of 75) and made just 3 of 18 3-point attempts in the opener. The Huskies couldn’t even convert from the free-throw line, going 21 of 36 (58.3 percent).
Yet somehow the Huskies rallied from a 16-point deficit to take a 52-51 lead with 5:26 remaining. The visitors responded with a 15-2 run to put the game away.
Terrell Brown Jr., a transfer from Arizona who was a teammate of Davis’ at Seattle’s Garfield High, led the Huskies with 22 points. Returnees Nate Roberts and Jamal Bey each scored 10. Roberts grabbed 19 rebounds, including 12 on the offensive end, before fouling out with 2:20 left.
Davis was 1 for 10 from the field for three points and West Virginia transfer Emmitt Matthews Jr., from Tacoma’s Wilson High, was 2 of 12 in scoring seven. PJ Fuller, another Garfield grad who returned home from TCU, was 1 of 4 for four points.
“I felt the quality of shot was bad,” UW coach Mike Hopkins said.
Northern Arizona also lost its opener Tuesday, an 81-52 defeat to Arizona in Tucson. Carson Towt had 11 points and nine rebounds for the Lumberjacks, the lone NAU player to reach double digits in scoring.
The Lumberjacks didn’t shoot much better than the Huskies at 35.8 percent from the field (19 of 53), including 5 of 16 beyond the arc, and were 9 of 17 (52.9 percent) from the line.
“The one thing I said in the locker room was let’s make sure we have our heads up and not make excuses right now,” Lumberjacks coach Shane Burcar said. “We’re not good enough to beat Arizona and that’s OK. You’ve got to know who you are, too.”
–Field Level Media
