The first half Tuesday night looked like the Montlake Dawgs versus Montlake Elementary. The second seemed more like a regular college basketball game, with a 62-56 score to go along with the 61-20 thumping the University of Washington men put on the Seattle University pre-teens the first frame.

TV viewers who picked up the game at the half, then, may not have believed what they saw on the screen. Was that 61-20? Yeah, and it had at one point been 18-0. The Red(in the face)hawks didn’t pick up their 10th point until the 15th minutes of the game had elapsed, making it 40-10.

The 123-76 final meant plenty of stats to go around. Six Huskies had 20 points or more and another had 18. Game statisticians were said to be receiving therapy for keyboarding fatigue.

A 47-point spread by a Husky club recently winless in L.A.? Against a Seattle U. team that three weeks ago beat the Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis 99-48?

"Well," stated Dawg mentor Lorenzo Romar after finishing off a contingent led by former assistant Cameron Dollar, “it feels good to be home. Our guys did a nice job tonight.”

Did a nice job? The N.B.A. all-stars sometimes don’t put up 123 points.

"I thought our guys maintained their composure pretty well in a game like this," the coach continued.

Maintained composure? The first half looked like a 10-on-one game. The Huskies didn't so much run the court as fly it.

Then Romar dared utter the dread words: “It was a good game before we get back into the Pac 10 play.”

Fortunately that means the next three at home, starting Saturday against Washington State. The 13-7 Dawgs have been either luckless or gutless away from Hec Ed this season, losing all six.

Indeed, one imagines if the Seattle U. event had been moved to a neutral court after the first half the Dawgs might actually have found a way to blow a 41-point advantage and lose.

Emerging ex-Dawgs: Brockman, golfer Alex Prugh

In the absence of greatness associated with Husky sports lately, it’s worth noting that two fair-haired boys from the UW are distinguishing themselves in the world beyond our provincial confines.

One is Jon Brockman. Many mused after his four-year Husky playing days that the burly forward would be an odd fit for the NBA. Drafted last year to be a teammate of one-time Husky Spencer Hawes of the Sacramento Kings, Brockman saw limited play time off the bench earlier this season. Lately, though, he’s been starting for the unremarkable (unmonarchical?) Kings, 15-28 through Saturday.

The other emerging star from Dawgland: Alex Prugh, lingering at the top of the leader board at the Bob Hope Classic, the latest stop on the PGA tour. The 25-year-old Spokane native won the New Zealand Open on last year’s Nationwide Tour. Northwest viewers would have loved seeing him compete in the Sunday leg of the five-day Hope pro-and-amateur pageant, but the coverage directors for Golf Channel preferred interviewing B-list thespians (Kurt Russell, John O'Hurley, e.g.), that and showing Alice Cooper hitting sand-trap shots.