Washington 97, Oregon St. 59

2/16/2008 9:23 PM

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) -The outcome was never in doubt but just about everybody was tense through the final buzzer in a 97-59 Washington rout of Oregon State.

Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said he had never seen anything like it. Kevin Mouton, Oregon State's interim head coach, said the hostility that had been brewing between the two teams was ``blown out of proportion.''

Whatever confrontations did or did not occur between Washington and Oregon State basketball players the day before, the Huskies got the best of it on the court Saturday.

Ryan Appleby had a career-high 32 points for Washington, including nine 3-pointers, as the Huskies handed the Beavers their 15th straight loss, the longest losing streak in team history.

Justin Dentmon had 17 points and Jon Brockman added 15 points and 10 rebounds for the Huskies (14-12, 5-8 Pac-10), who jumped out to a huge lead and never looked back for their second win in three games. They shot 54 percent.

Lathen Wallace had 16 points and Omari Johnson had 11 for Oregon State (6-19, 0-13), which suffered from the same dismal shooting (32.2 percent) that has torpedoed most of its games.

The Beavers, the worst shooting team in the conference, made just 7 of 28 shots in the first half, after a 6-for-27 effort in the first half against Washington State Thursday. Oregon State's previous longest losing streak belonged to the 1995-96 team.

Washington had lost four in a row, before upsetting No. 5 UCLA last weekend. The Huskies lost 71-58 at Oregon Thursday.

Romar said his team was motivated by incidents Friday, when Oregon State players reportedly confronted Washington players at Gill Coliseum as the Huskies were finishing practice.

``Without getting into he-said, she-said, it was something I have never seen before,'' Romar said. ``It reminded me of when (Muhammad) Ali showed up at (Sonny) Liston's training camp.''

Romar said it was ``my understanding'' that some Beavers then came to the Huskies' hotel and left a threatening phone message.

That part never happened, said Mouton, who did confirm the Gill Coliseum incident.

``It was just jibberjabber,'' Mouton said. ``Nineteen-year-olds with big egos.''

Both coaches did say that the officials did a good job of keeping the action from spilling onto the floor, although it came close to getting ugly early in the second half when Johnson was called for an intentional foul and Oregon State's Sean Carter was whistled for a technical foul.

Neither coach believed there would be any fallout in the way of conference discipline. ``The only fallout will be the media trying to stir something up,'' Mouton said.

Oregon State was already on its way to its most lopsided loss of the season after Washington shot 57.6 percent in the first half to make it 48-24 at halftime.

Appleby, a senior guard, broke his own team record of seven 3-pointers, set Dec. 18 against Portland State. He is averaging 10.4 points this season.

``He had a real good night tonight,'' Wallace said. ``He's tough, and I respect him.''

Quincy Pondexter and Matt Bryan-Amaning had 12 points a piece for Washington, which beat Oregon State 108-68 in 2005.