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The sophomore shooting guard took command of a game that was slipping away from Washington and turned it into a comfortable 76-60 victory over Oregon on Saturday, thanks to his buttery-smooth shooting stroke.
The Huskies improved to 8-5 overall and 2-0 in the Pacific-12 Conference in front of 9,597 fans at Alaska Airlines Arena.
Wilcox, who tied a career high with 24 points, took advantage of Oregon’s awful perimeter defense and buried six 3-pointers, which also tied a career high. But a sequence of three of them secured the Huskies’ victory.
The Ducks had cut the lead to 48-44 midway through the second quarter, but Wilcox scored 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions.
In a sign of his maturing, all-around offensive game, Wilcox found another way to score on a driving bucket moments later.
Terrence Ross added another 3-pointer and suddenly a four-point lead ballooned back to 13 points.
And from there, the disparity continued to grow.
Washington continued to get open looks from 3-point range and knock the shots down as Wilcox hit another and Abdul Gaddy buried two more.
And when the Huskies are hitting 3-pointers, they are nearly impossible to stop. They were 12 of 22 from long range.
In contrast, Oregon was awful from the perimeter. The number of 3-point bricks they tossed up could have resurfaced the faade of the arena. Oregon – taking away Garrett Sims’ 3-for-8 accuracy from 3-point range – shot 10 percent from beyond the arc (2 of 20).
Washington held Oregon scoring leader Devoe Joseph to four points on 1-of-13 shooting.
The Huskies got 17 points and five assists from Tony Wroten and 12 points and three assists from Gaddy.
Ryan Divish: 253-597-8483
ryan.divish@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/uwsports
