The Bears had a chance to tie the game with 18 seconds left after stealing the inbounds pass, but Danny O'Boyle's three-pointer was off the mark. A.J. Straub sealed the victory for Carnegie Mellon with two free-throws with 15 seconds left.
Sophomore Troy Ruths was the difference in the game early on as he scored 10 of the Bears first 19 points as WU took the early 19-10 lead with 11:32 remaining in the first half. Nate Maurer, the UAA's leading scorer at 19.0 points per game, had two put-backs in a row to lead an 10-0 run by the Tartans as they took the 20-19 lead.
Trailing 22-21, the Bears answered with a 10-0 run as senior Mike Grunst had six and Ruths added four. A layup-by Ruths with 1:11 left pushed the WU lead to 36-26, but Nate Maurer had a free-throw and Geoff Kozak had a steal and a three-pointer as WU took a 36-30 lead to the locker room.
Ruths had 18 points in the first half on 8-of-9 shooting from the field. The Bears defense held the UAA's top scoring team to 33.3 percent (12-36) from the field, including 1-of-8 from three-point range.
A.J. Straub, who had seven three-pointers in CMU's 86-80 win in St. Louis just five days ago, connected on his first three of the game to trim the lead to 36-35 with 18:59 left in the game. Nate Maurer of CMU scored five straight points, including a deep three-pointer from the corner, to tie the score at 45-45 with 15:45 left.
Carnegie Mellon gathered its first lead of the game at 55-53 with 8:30 remaining after Maurer hit a three-throw and Clayton Barlow-Wilcox scored on a fast-break layup. The Bears regained the lead at 63-62 with 6:14 remaining after junior Neal Griffin and senior Scott Stone connected on back-to-back three-pointers.
Barlow-Wilcox scored four straight points for Carnegie Mellon to gain the lead at 68-63, and then connected on a pair of free-throws to push the lead to 70-65 with 2:47 left. Trailing 72-65, Stone connected on a deep three-pointer and made 1-of-2 free-throws to cut the lead to 73-69. After Straub made two-free throws, Griffin connected on his third three-pointer of the game to trim the lead to 75-72.
Ruths finished with a game-high 22 points as he scored in double figures for the 24 th -straight game. Stone finished with 14 points, while Griffin tied his career-high with 13 points. Stone added six assists as he moved past former assistant coach Kevin O'Connell (1985-89) into fourth place on the all-time list with 335.
With the win, Carnegie Mellon head coach Tony Wingen became CMU's all-time wins leader with 174 career victories. Barlow-Wilcox finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds, while Maurer had 17 points and eight rebounds.
Washington University (13-6, 5-3 UAA) returns to action Sun., Feb. 5 at the University of Rochester. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m. (EST) in Rochester, N.Y.