These days Shawn Kemp Jr. is one of Lorenzo Romar’s favorite topics of discussion.

The Huskies big man is a fourth-year senior who has overcome a medical illness and basketball struggles and is now enjoying the best stretch of games in his college career.

“Consistency is the thing that we’ve talked about for three years and this has been his most consistent,” Romar said following the Washington men’s basketball team’s 76-69 nonconference win over Pacific in the Marv Harshman Classic Sunday night. “Shawn has been consistently bringing it from the first day of practice.”

In front of a sparse crowd at KeyArena, Kemp led the Huskies in scoring for the third time this season, tallying 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting. He was 4 of 4 on free throws.

“There’s consistency,” Romar said. “There’s no secret. In the past whether it was injury or maybe the confidence wasn’t there, whatever the case was he just wasn’t as dialed in as he’s been this year.

“He’s been dialed in from day one and it’s been reflective to how he’s played.”

At times Kemp maneuvered around 7-foot Pacific center Sami Eleraky with a soft jump hook and other times he bulldozed his way to the rim for alley-oop dunks and putbacks.

He carried the Huskies until guards Nigel Williams-Goss (17 points and six assists) and Andrew Andrews (17 points and seven rebounds) closed out the win.

Kemp had four points as the Huskies raced out to a 7-0 lead. They were up 14-3 at the 14:56 mark when Williams-Goss converted a layup.

At that point, it seemed as if Washington was on its way to a comfortable win.

“We came out with great focus and it was almost as if we were bored with success at that point,” Romar said. “As the game went on we began to make mistakes and there were breakdowns. … We needed to step it up and there were too many breakdowns in terms of our lack of communication.”

Pacific used a 13-0 run over the next four minutes to surge ahead 16-14 for its only lead. The Huskies regained control and led 36-29 at halftime. They built a 14-point lead (49-35) with 14:08 left before the Tigers began chipping away in the final minutes.

Pacific closed to within five points (66-61) at the 1:39 mark but Williams-Goss found freshman Donaven Dorsey, who drained a 3-pointer near the top of the key, to keep the game at bay. The Tigers never got closer than six points the rest of the way.

Sophomore guard T.J. Wallace scored a game-high 24 points and reserve guard Dulani Robinson added 14 for the Tigers (2-2).

“We have spurts where we do good on defense, then we have spurt where we play to the level of the competition,” said senior guard Mike Anderson, who finished with nine points and six rebounds. “But we got the win. So that was good.”

The Huskies outrebounded the Tigers 40-32 even though backup center Robert Upshaw fouled out in eight minutes. He hadn’t committed a foul in the first two games while compiling 14 blocks. However, he finished with two points, two rebounds and no blocks Sunday.

“The thing we talk about is consistency day in and day out,” Romar said. “Being able to bring it. That’s acquired over a period of time because of your practice habits. When you practice consistently over a period of time, it will show up in the game.

“That’s what we try to get our team to do. Sometimes if we don’t do that and you play against a team and they may not be more talented than you but you can get exposed if that doesn’t happen.”

After two stellar defensive performances, Romar lamented a defense that allowed Pacific to shoot 40.4 percent from the field.

“Even down the stretch there were mistakes that we made,” he said. “If I had hair, I would have pulled it out and I don’t have any hair. So it’s a win-win I guess in that regard.

“That wasn’t our team out there tonight with the exception of the first six minutes.”

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @percyallen.

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