A 17-point victory against a winless team seems like a step in the right direction for Danny Sprinkle and the Washington Huskies, who topped the Alcorn State Braves 77-60 inside Alaska Airlines Arena on Friday night behind a strong showing from Tyler Harris.
The 6-foot-8, 190-pound sophomore transfer from Portland started at power forward alongside Great Osobor and posted a career-high 27 points on a very efficient 8-11 from the floor, including 3-5 from three-point range, with 8 rebounds.
Freshman guard Zoom Diallo also made his first career start and finished with 15 points, a new high for him on the young season, with 4 assists. Their combined 42 points were sorely needed on a night where Osobor got in early foul trouble, only took four shots, and was held to just 8 points and 4 rebounds.
“Kind of like a lot of teams, they were just putting five guys in the paint, and they’re going to do that until we start making shots,” Sprinkle said. Osobor also added 4 assists, a block, and a steal to his bottom line on a night where the Huskies showed a slight improvement from the floor, shooting 49 percent for the night and 31.8 percent from three-point range.
“I thought he had some good assists, and I know he had one turnover, but I thought he got the ball out of those double teams pretty well for the most part. We need to make teams pay when they do that when they come double him, and they’re shrinking the paint that much, we’ve got to make shots, or else teams are going to just sit in his lap all game and make it hard on him.”
The Huskies improved to 4-1 on the season and will now prepare for a Thanksgiving Day matchup with Colorado State at the Acrisure Invitational in Palm Springs.