Aggie men keep it close, but fall to Washington in basketball season opener

TY Johnson has a career-high 35 points in a 79-73 loss

SEATTLE - There might not be moral victories in college basketball, but UC Davis head coach Jim Les was nevertheless pleased with his team's "fight" and "effort" in a 79-73 opening game loss to the University of Washington Tuesday night at Alaska Airlines Arena.

The Aggies fell behind, 12-2, in the early going, but rallied to tie the game at 33 with 1:02 left in the first half.

"We got off to a poor start and it would be easy to mail it in at that point, but our guys were resilient and at the half they were talking about how we could win this game," Les said.

Trailing 37-33 at half, UCD took its first lead of the night at 41-39 on a bucket from TY Johnson followed by a 3-pointer from Leo DeBruhl.

The Aggies enjoyed their biggest lead of the night at 58-53 on a trey from Isaiah Chappell before the Huskies went on a 9-0 run and didn't look back.