Final: UW, 87-60. Leading the way was Jon Brockman, who had 16 points and 10 rebounds. Aaron Broussard of Federal Way led Seattle U. with 13 points. Michael Wright of Lakewood had four points and four rebounds.

The Huskies avoided the disaster of a loss and apparently also the disaster of a serious injury to Quincy Pondexter. After the game Pondexter said he was scared when he hit the ground that he might be seriously hurt, but he played six minutes in the second half and thinks he'll be OK ... although everyone is curious about how he'll feel in the morning.

Romar overview: "Well, we made it through, and now we’re going to senior day. It was fun to get that series kick started a year early. We’ll continue to do that.

"Now we’ve got to shift gears. I was pleased with how our guys were able to shift gears tonight a step outside of conference play. I thought in the first half we did an excellent job of coming out and being focused. That was the biggest concern that I had in this game. I thought we answered the bell in that regard."

SU coach Joe Callero overview: "They are so aggressive on the ball that they speed up all parts of the game. They just have the ability to hit the elbow and the wrist and the physicalness. It's not dirty. It's very smart basketball. It's momentum changing. It takes you out of your regular comfort zone. They just do a great job of pushing your buttons to make you play faster, shoot faster, dribble faster, and put you out of position, and that really gets their transition going.

"Give them all the credit in the world. It's a team that could be exciting in Seattle. It realistically could be a Final Four team."

Late second half: Jon Brockman is out, Artem Wallace is in -- just scored, in fact -- and the issue is settled.

Start of second half: Quincy Pondexter is back and will start the second half. He suffered bruised ribs in that scary fall, but obviously it's not that serious a deal.

Halftime: UW, 42-19. Brockman has 10 and Thomas eight for the Huskies.

Late first half: This game got out of hand early, with UW leading 33-13. In the loose atmosphere, UW's Venoy Overton launched an unnecessary ally-oop pass to Quincy Pondexter, who scored but flipped over Seattle U defender Chris Gweth. Pondexter fell hard and awkwardly. He stayed on the ground for a couple of minutes and now has been helped to the locker room.

Pondexter is UW's No 4 scorer, and No. 2 rebounder, averaging 11.5 points and 5.9 boards.

I'll check back when we get word. (Or if any of you watching on TV get word first, please post.)

Early going: 4-4 four minutes in.

However, I have to take back part of the post below. There's a good and loud representation of SU fans here. It's just that oddly few of them are wearing red.

Tipoff: The Huskies are going with their usual lineup: Brockman, Dentmon, Pondexter, Gant and Thomas.

Among the starters for SeattleU is forward Michael Wright of Lakewood/Pierce College/Steilacoom HS.

Late-arriving crowd. And as of now, not notably more SeattleU red in the house than supporters for any other visiting team.

Championship T: The Huskies say their care about making this an outright Pac-10 championship, but apparently the folks in charge of merchandising aren't quite as picky. I just passed by the Hec Ed team shop, where I noticed this Pac-10 regular-season championship T-shirt.

Gameplan from SU: Here are some leftover quotes from Seattle U. coach Joe Callero that didn't make today's paper, talking about the Redhawks approach to this game ... and how they can win:

"The lower the score the better the opportunity for us and the more likely we have a chance to get hot from the perimeter. But I think the real key will be for us to take care of the ball on offense and rebound the ball on defense.

"We wouldn’t be an athlete, a coach, a competitor if you didn’t put together a scenario in your brain of what we have to do – what’s our game plan, what series of things do we have to do. And the first part of a game plan is believing you can win the game. If you do anything in your life, if you don’t believe you can have success then you might as well back it up because you won’t, you won’t have success.

"Clearly we believe that if we play to our potential for 40 minutes and the University of Washington does not play to their potential for 40 minutes, anything is possible. That’s why the game should be exciting. It’s clearly a Goliath opportunity for us, but that happens in sports on an annual basis. There’s a great upset story that goes on out there. We all believe we can be in position to pull that great upset."

At Hec Ed: I just pulled into the Hec Ed parking lot -- after having survived end-of-the-world storm clouds in the South Sound -- and was greeted by signs saying tonight's game between Seattle U and UW is sold out.

It should make for a fun atmosphere as the teams renew the rivalry that ended in January 1980.

Here's my game preview from this morning.

Tipoff is at 8 p.m. The game will be shown on FSN.

Now, more than two hours from tip, only Elston Turner is out on the court, practicing free throws while wearing the Huskies' gold uniform -- and headphones.

Normal gameday blogging is planned: Pregame news as it happens, in-game updates, and postgame notes and quotes.

The Arizona Wildcats report that star forward Jordan Hill is day-to-day in preparations for the game Thursday against California.

Hill suffered what he considers one of the worst ankle sprains of his life Saturday, in the Cats loss at Washington.

However, now Washington has a rooting interest in UA beating Cal, because if UCLA catches UW in the Pac-10 standings, the tie-breaker for seeding in the conference tournament favors UW if Arizona State gets past Cal in the battle for third place. (The tie-breaking procedure is listed in a post below.)