Thomas leads No. 17 Huskies to win over Cal

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Jan. 16, 2010
CAL PAGEBOX SCORE

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) Isaiah Thomasscored 18 of his season-high 27 points in the first half and No. 17Washington bounced back from a late loss at Stanford to beat California92-71 on Sunday night and salvage a split on its tough Bay Area trip.Thomas also dished out a career-high13 assists, including two in a row on 3-pointers by Justin Holiday tostart the second half as Washington quickly pulled away. Holiday scored23 points and Matthew Bryan-Amaning added 22 and 11 rebounds for theHuskies (13-4, 5-1 Pac-10), who shot much better than their coldperformance against the Cardinal three days earlier.Harper Kamp scored 20 points andfreshman Allen Crabbe followed up his season-best 30-point, 10-for-15performance against Washington State with 16 points for the GoldenBears (9-8, 2-3). Cal couldn't keep the momentum from its thrilling88-81 overtime victory against the Cougars on Thursday night.Washington shot 52.3 percent, going13 for 29 from long range, to pull off a rare win at Haas Pavilion. TheHuskies had won just twice in their previous 10 visits to Cal's homefloor, the last time an 87-84 victory on March 1, 2008.This nationally televised game was a rematch of last season's Pac-10 tournament final won 79-75 by Washington.Holiday shot 9 for 14 with five3-pointers after going 0 for 5 in the first half of the Stanford gameand missing a shot at the end of that one. Bryan-Amaning went 10 for 15from the floor and Thomas was 8 of 16 and made all eight of hisfree-throw tries.Thomas has 103 assists already thisseason after getting 202 in his previous two years. He broke intoWashington's top 10 on the career assists list with Sunday's outing.Thomas has seven or more assists in his last five games and eight ormore in four of those.The Huskies looked inspired and readyagainst the defending Pac-10 regular-season champions. Washington,which recently lost point guard Abdul Gaddy to a season-ending kneeinjury that required surgery Friday, had its 11-game winning streakagainst Pac-10 opponents snapped in a 58-56 loss at Stanford onThursday night. The loss also ended its school-record six-game roadwinning streak against the conference.The Huskies couldn't hold an 11-pointlead with 8:55 left against the Cardinal. They were held to theirlowest scoring total of the season and shot 36.2 percent from the fieldto have their six-game winning streak stopped. Washington coach LorenzoRomar made a lineup change by moving Scott Suggs into the starting fivein place of Venoy Overton, the Pac-10's active career leader in assistsand steals.Cal coach Mike Montgomery washonored before tipoff for his recent 600th career win Dec. 28 victoryover Hartford. Athletic director Sandy Barbour presented Montgomerywith a commemorative basketball and bottle of wine, then a videotribute showed on the main baseline scoreboards.Richard Solomon added 14 points for Cal, making all five of his shots.After Cal pulled within 23-22 onEmerson Murray's basket with 8:10 left in the first half, Washingtonresponded with a 13-2 burst to build a 36-24 lead. Bryan-Amaning scoredfive straight during the run and the Huskies led 48-33 at halftimeafter shooting 53.1 percent and making 7 of 14 from 3-point range inthe first half.Washington made eight of its first 12 shots to build a 19-11 lead.

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