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By GREGG BELL AP Sports Writer
SEATTLE (AP) -- Freshman Spencer Hawes scored 23 points to tie his season high from two nights earlier and Jon Brockman had 18 points and 12 rebounds as No. 17 Washington overcame a sleepy start to beat Weber State 80-51 on Friday night.
The Huskies' slow beginning was almost expected following their thrashing of No. 12 LSU on Wednesday. Washington (10-1) awakened in plenty of time to win its 27th consecutive nonconference home game dating to 2003.
The Huskies begin Pac-10 Conference play next weekend at Southern California and top-ranked UCLA.
Dezmon Harris and Dan Henry each scored 13 points for Weber State (7-6), which led by 11 points midway through the first half before a 14-0 Huskies' run put the Wildcats behind for good.
Weber State started the game 7-of-13 from the field but made just two of its final 14 shots in the opening half to fall behind 38-30.
David Patten, the Wildcats' leading scorer coming in, had just three points in the decisive first half and eight for the game.
The Wildcats went scoreless for 8:40 of the second half while the Huskies pulled away.
Brockman and Hawes highlighted the otherwise ugly second half, in which Washington outscored bumbling Weber State 42-21.
Brockman was wearing a bandage under his left eye to cover a scrape sustained while throttling LSU All-America Glen Davis on Wednesday. He threw down a thunderous dunk off a lob pass from Adrian Oliver behind Weber State's zone defense 3 1/2 minutes into the second half. The sophomore team captain then led a fastbreak off a turnover, spun and got fouled while scoring in the lane. His eight successive, celebratory fist pumps symbolically pounded Weber State away, and his subsequent free throw put Washington up 52-40.
Hawes followed with six consecutive points, including a rousing, right-handed dunk. Last spring's high school All-America from Seattle made a jumper in the lane to end a four-minute stretch of neither team scoring. That gave the Huskies a 58-42 lead.
Another three-point play by Brockman -- a dunk off another lob pass from Oliver -- put Washington up 63-42 and delighted the sold-out home crowd.
Those folks were mumbling and gasping when Harris banked in a jump shot to put Weber State up 21-10 after 9 1/2 minutes. Washington missed 14 of its first 18 shots in that span, but then woke up on Hawes' five consecutive points. Freshman Quincy Pondexter's nifty pass inside created Oliver's layup to tie the game at 21.
And when Pondexter then beat two Wildcats off the dribble and soared across the baseline for a rousing dunk, Washington had its first lead since 2-0.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APTV-12-22-06 2221MST
