FINAL -- 96-78. Big day for Thomas, Bryan-Amaning and Pondexter. I'm signing off. I'm sure Christian Caple will be taking over tomorrow against Portland State.

SHERRER SEES ACTION -- Romar put walk-on Brendan Sherrar in with the Huskies up 92-74. And he got involved in a hurry, forcing a turnover that led to a short alley-oop from Gaddy to Holiday. That one got the crowd and the rest of the team on their feet. Huskies up 96-78.

MBA BACK IN -- It's 88-69 with 3:58 to go. MBA is back in.

PONDEXTER STILL PERFECT -- ... from the line. He got fouled on a putback attempt and is now 11-11 from the free-throw line and has 25 points. Huskies lead it 82-61 with 6:32 to go.

MBA FINALLY MISSES -- Albiet, it was a free throw -- that was the first missed free throw by UW all night; they're 16-17. We might as well call this the MBA point counter, though. He has 23 on the night and was just taken out by Romar. Probably deserves a rest after the performance he's put on. 11-13 from the field with six rebounds, this is a career day for the junior. In other news, the Huskies are now up 78-56 with 9:22 remaining.

HUSKIES WITH COMMANDING LEAD -- Well, the Huskies have a 73-56 lead now. Still a lot of basketball to play with 11:59 remaining, but a commanding lead nonetheless. Bryan-Amaning has 20 points as mentioned below and Pondexter has 21 to lead the Huskies. Thomas has 19. The rest of the Huskies are doing a good job to get the ball to the hot hands. And the Bruins have cooled down a little bit since the start of the half, now shooting 53 percent, down from about 58.

MBA STILL DOMINATING -- Bryan-Amaning got a little breather but promptly scored four more points after being put back in by Romar. He has 20 points now with five rebounds. Huskies up 68-56 with 13:23 to go in the second half.

PONDEXTER TO PONDEXTER -- Pondexter drove down the court and tossed the ball off the rim to himself to make a layup. Quite the play. Huskies up 61-51 with 15:00 to go in the second half.

MBA DOMINATING -- Two more layups for Bryan-Amaning give him 16 points and keep the Huskies up 59-50. He's hot and the rest of the Huskies seem to realize this -- they're giving him the ball. He also almost had his third block of the game, except he got it a bit too late, resulting in a goal-tending call.

The Huskies though, still can't seem to stop the Bruins when they have the ball. They're now 19-33 from the field.

MBA SIGHTING -- Bryan-Amaning just scored four of the Huskies' first six points of the second half to give the Huskies a 55-44 lead. He is now 6-8 from the field. Maybe he's answering some critics with tonight's performance. He has three rebounds so far though, not exactly a Jon Brockman-esque presence inside...yet.

AT THE HALF -- The Huskies lead 49-39 going into the locker room. After a bit of a scare about mid way through the quarter, the Huskies took a bit more control. Still, Belmont isn't missing much of its shots. They're 14-25 from the field.

The Huskies, though are winning the rebounding and free-throw battle with 21-13 and 12-12 to 6-8 edge's, respectively.

Pondexter and Thomas lead the Huskies with 14 points apiece while MBA has eight of his own.

Interestingly enough, Pondexter and Thomas also lead the Huskies in rebounding with five apiece.

While the Huskies have spread the ball around pretty well, Belmont has done perhaps an even better job of it. They just haven't had as many opportunities, but nine Bruins are on the board with points.

The Huskies will have to put a little more pressure on these Bruins, who are having a lot of trouble missing right now.

HONORING MARV HARSHMAN -- UW legend Marv Harshman is getting honored at Hec Ed right now. A sentimental video piece with him and Romar played before he was given a standing ovation and a frame with photo memories.

SHARP SHOOTERS 2 -- Just a side note. The Huskies are 12-12 from the free-throw line. Pondexter is 8-8, Thomas is 3-3 and Breshers is 1-1. That's a marked improvement over what we've seen before.

THOMAS AGAIN -- Thomas just made his third trey of the night and got fouled in the process. He made it a four-point play to give the Huskies a 45-34 cushion with 2:15 to go in the first half.

ROMAR ANIMATED -- UW coach Lorenzo Romar appeared pretty animated in a time out after the Huskies let Belmont's Scott Sanders to drain a jumper from wide-open pastures. 34-32 Huskies with 5:15 to go in the half.

HUSKIES SPREADING IT AROUND -- Everyone's getting involved. MBA had his second block of the game and Pondexter putback a missed layup by Thomas. Elston Turner also got in the mix with a key 3-pointer to keep the Huskies ahead. The only problem: Belmont can't seem to miss. They're 9-16 from the field and 4-7 from 3-point range. Huskies have to do a little more to force bad shots. 29-26 with 7:42 to go in the first half.

BRUINS KEEPING UP -- Sure the Huskies are making shots from all over the place, but the Bruins have kept up since their early troubles. They're 6-12 from the field and it's 22-14 Huskies with 11:54 to go in the half. The key so far has been fouls and rebounds. Belmont has five fouls to the Huskies' two, while UW has outrebounded the Bruins 9-4. As a result, the Huskies have made all six of their free-throw attempts.

SHARP SHOOTERS -- Huskies just made three FG's in a row, 3-pointers by Thomas and Gaddy, and a jump shot by Justin Holiday put the Huskies up 20-12 with 13:48 to go in the first half. Also, MBA had a nice block down on the other end to give the Huskies posession.

PONDEXTER TAKING BOARDS -- Huskies are up 15-7 with 15:09 to play. One interesting observation is that Pondexter has three of the Huskies' four rebounds and has played mostly inside so far. We'll see how this develops, especially considering he is being labelled as a "guard" in pre-game introductions.

HUSKIES PLAYING LIKE HUSKIES -- Up-tempo play is causing the Bruins to take shots they probably wouldn't like to take. MBA and Pondexter have four points apiece as the Huskies lead 10-4 with 16:10 to play in the first half.

STARTERS -- UW's starters are Venoy Overton, Isaiah Thomas, Matthew Bryan-Amaning, Quincy Pondexter, and Darnell Gant.

The starters for the Bruins: G Drew Hanlen, G Ian Clark, F Keaton Belcher, F Jordan Campbell, C Mick Hedgepeth

---

Allen Wagner here at the Athletes-in-Action Classic for tonight's basketball game betweeen the Huskies and the Belmont Bruins.

I'm sure some of my colleagues are driving back from Corvallis, Ore. by now. On their way back up, but I don't think they'll make it back in time for the whole game here at Hec Ed tonight. Maybe the last few minutes. We'll see.

Tip-off in about 25 minutes. I'll keep you informed throughout the game.

-- Just a note that Wright State won the earlier game today, beating Portland State 75-70. Former Husky Phil Nelson went 2-for-7 from the field for six points in 32 minutes. He did snag six rebounds though.

---