Keion Brooks Jr. scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds and Washington capitalized on Xavier’s miscues to score a 74-71 win in the second game of the Continental Tire Main Event on Friday in Las Vegas.
Washington advances to Sunday’s championship round to face San Diego State, which routed Saint Mary’s in the night’s first game, 79-54. Xavier takes on Saint Mary’s on Sunday.
The Huskies (3-1) endured offensive struggles, shooting 24-for-66 (36.4 percent) from the floor and just 3-for-16 (18.8 percent) from 3-point range. However, Washington’s 23-for-33 free-throw shooting helped make the difference on a night Xavier shot just 18-for-31 from the foul line.
The Musketeers (2-2) went just 24-of-61 (39.3 percent) from the floor and 5-for-16 (31.3 percent) from beyond the 3-point arc. Xavier also committed 18 turnovers that Washington converted into 16 points.
The last two of those points off turnovers proved decisive, as Moses Wood hit a contested jumper with 19 seconds remaining that gave the Huskies a four-point lead.
Wood’s basket came after Xavier’s Lazar Djokovic went out of bounds on a would-be, game-tying possession set up by a Huskies turnover.
Washington trailed by as many as nine points in the second half but chipped away at the deficit behind Brooks. He scored 16 of his 20 points after intermission and was effective at getting to the foul line, shooting a team-leading 9-for-12 from the stripe.
Sahvir Wheeler added 18 points and Koren Johnson came off the bench to score 10 points for Washington. Franck Kepnang finished with eight points and a game-high 12 rebounds, and Wood contributed nine points.
Gytis Nemeiksa led Xavier with 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the floor. Desmond Claude scored 19 points before fouling out. Quincy Olivari added 13 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
Djokovic, making his Xavier debut, scored seven points off the bench.
–Field Level Media