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WSU collapses down the stretch

Posted by Vince

Dec. 27, 2008 3:13 p.m. • 37 comments

COUGARS

After the collapse was over, and WSU had lost 64-52 at LSU, basketball coach Tony Bennett talked about “regrouping.” The defeat itself was one thing, but the way the Cougars lost, blowing a seven-point lead midway through the second half by just giving the ball away, hurt even more. Bennett talked afterward on his radio show about getting ready for Pac-10 play. If WSU can play like it did for the first 10 minutes of the second half against UW, the Cougars will be all right. If they play like the did the final few minutes, it will be a long conference season. Read on for the album version of the game story I put together from watching on ESPN2, listening to Bud Nameck’s call and talking with Taylor Rochestie by phone afterward.

••••••••••

• Here is the unedited version of the game story with some web-only notes at the end …

•••••

To quote Tony Bennett, this one hurts.

It hurt Saturday, when his Washington State Cougars tossed away a seven-point, second-half lead and lost, 64-52, to Louisiana State before 10,585 at the Pete Maravich Center in Baton Rouge.

“We felt we had that game in our grasp, so that’s why it hurts so much,” said senior point guard Taylor Rochestie.

And it could hurt even worse in March, when the NCAA Tournament field is announced.

Though Bennett, WSU’s third-year coach, isn’t looking that far.

After WSU turned the ball over 18 times, including eight in the final 6 minutes, 24 seconds, Bennett couldn’t even look past Saturday’s final few possessions.

“There are two things that have to happen down the stretch,” Bennett said. “Your defense has to make them shoot tough shots and I think we gave up a couple easy ones. And then you have to be sound and get quality shots at the end of the game.

“Those two things just slid right off the edge of the cliff.”

And the fall was steep.

The Cougars (8-4) led their final nonconference game 47-40 with 9:14 left after Klay Thompson converted two of WSU’s eight free throw attempts. Less than 30 seconds later the lead should have grown to nine, but Nik Koprivica’s open layup from the left side didn’t hit rim, flying long.

The miss seemed to deflate the Cougars.

Before Koprivica’s drive WSU was 9 of 10 from the floor in the second half. After the Cougars were 2 of 10, with both makes by Aron Baynes. The 6-foot-10, 250-pound center played just 22 minutes after picking up two quick first-half fouls and still finished with nine points and five rebounds.

Add in the eight turnovers and WSU was outscored 24-5.

“We certainly collapsed,” Bennett said.

The Tigers (10-1 and with a 13-game home winning streak) roared back, first behind Garrett Temple, who scored six quick points and finished with 13, and leading scorer Marcus Thornton, whose 3-pointer in transition at the 5:38 mark, gave LSU a 50-49 lead they would never give back.

Because WSU kept giving the Tigers the ball.

“Down the stretch it was just mental errors,” Rochestie said. “Coach talks about soundness all the time and at the end of the game we weren’t sound.”

A Koprivica turnover – he had three to go with five points – led to Temple’s free throw. After Baynes’ free throw cut the lead to 51-50, WSU’s Klay Thompson turned it over and Rochestie missed a 3-pointer. But LSU didn’t capitalize until Tasmin Mitchell finally hit a 5-foot runner in the lane.

But Baynes answered again and, with 3:16 left, WSU trailed by only one, 53-52.

Yet, despite getting stops when Marcus Thornton had two shots blocked and Bo Spencer, who kept LSU in it in the first half with 12 of his game-high 19 points, missing in transition, WSU couldn’t take advantage.

The Cougars turned the ball over three consecutive possessions and LSU, which shot 38.9 percent from the floor (10 percent below its season average), started making shots.

Quinton Thornton made one of two free throws, Marcus Thornton added a 3-pointer and, when Spencer stole a pass and went the distance for a layup and a foul, it was 60-52. The Tigers would score the game’s final 11 points.

“At the end, I feel like we kind of just gave them the ball,” Rochestie said. “Literally, we just gave it to them with turnovers, letting down our guard and not showing toughness at the end of the game.

“We started turning the ball over and they were capitalizing on our mistakes. And they were hitting big shots. They were hitting shots with hands in their faces.”

Lost in the end-of-game collapse was how WSU built the lead.

The Cougars had to play all but 4 minutes of the first half without Baynes, their leading scoring. And still they trailed by just two, 25-23, at the break.

“He’s such a big part of our team, such a big part of our offense, rebounds, everything,” Rochestie said. “Not having him, we struggled to establish ourselves in the first half offensively. Defensively, we did a pretty decent job.

“We have to play different rotations, we have to play defense a little differently when Baynes isn’t in the game. We’re a little undersized.”

That undersized lineup, led by Rochestie and Thompson, limited LSU to 8 of 28 (28.6 percent) from the field and outrebounded the nation’s leading rebounding team 20-18 (the final tally was 33-28, with Rochestie leading the way with a season-high nine).

Then the Cougars came out of the locker room on fire.

Thompson, who was credited with 12 points but actually scored 14 – his 15-foot jumper with 7:29 left in the first half was mistakenly given to Rochestie – missed on WSU’s first possession.

The Cougs then hit their next nine shots from the floor and all four free throws in building the 47-40 lead.

“I’m happy with the way we played up until about 7 minutes (left),” said Rochestie, who was officially 6 of 16 (2 of 3 beyond the arc) for a team-high 14 points. “When you have a five- or seven-point lead with about 7-minutes left to go, especially with the way we played … you should be able to at least hold it close toward the end of the game a shot to win.”

The Cougars couldn’t and that was a sore point.

“That one hurts a lot,” Bennett said. “But that’s the way this game goes. We’ve got the Pac-10 starting and we came down here to learn something.

“I don’t like what we learned, unfortunately.”

Most of the lessons were negative.

“Our decision-making down the stretch,” Bennett said of the lessons, “the turnovers, not having composure in that setting.

“I told our guys if we’re going to have any chance to be competitive, to be successful, we’re going to be in a lot of tight games. Until you learn how to take care of the ball and be sound, you’ll never win those games.”

NOTES: Senior Daven Harmeling, shooting 43.5 percent from beyond the arc and averaging 8 points, didn’t take a single shot in his 23 minutes. … Caleb Forrest picked up two early fouls, but continued to play in the first half. He finished with 10 points on 4 of 5 shooting. … For the second consecutive game Rochestie played all 40 minutes. … LSU has struggled at the free-throw line down the stretch of games, but was 7 of 9 in the final 5:14. The Tigers were 13 of 15 overall. … LSU coach Trent Johnson, the former Stanford coach, gave a lot of the credit to Temple. “He needs to lead,” Johnson said. “It’s interesting because sometimes kids give leadership lip service and it’s phony. His whole thing and persona is real. I’ve been around this a long time and this kid has discretion in terms of his leadership.”

•••••

• That’s it for today. The play down the stretch obliterated any positives WSU had created by building a seven-point lead in a tough place to compete. The Cougars will head back tonight by charter either into Lewiston or Pullman, depending on the weather. They’ll have tomorrow off, then get back to practice. Pac-10 play opens in a week, when the Huskies come to Pullman. We’ll be there. And we’ll be down in Pullman this week. But before then, tomorrow we’ll link stories for you. Till then …

37 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Coug85 on December 27 at 4:43 p.m.
As bad as Nik stunk it up in the second half, Caleb kept us in the game in the first half. Kudos to Caleb! I also think that Trent Johnson out coached Tony…again.
garlandcoug on December 27 at 4:58 p.m.
I was surprised to see that Daven played 23mins. Not taking a shot is just plan weird. I got to think that his shoulder is bothering him.
RobH on December 27 at 5:01 p.m.
The big key in the final 8 minutes, as I said before the game, is getting it to Baynes. We looked good when our offense was flowing through him, but WSU stopped, or LSU stopped it, and the game went away.

Nik played poorly, like he did vs. the Zags. Completely benching him is not an option, he needs to work through it like Rochestie has.
mbb on December 27 at 5:15 p.m.
Tony wasn’t the guy making bad passes and forcing bad shots the last 6 minutes. The Cougs just lost their composure. Hopefully, they start learning from these bad second halves, and have some success in the Pac10.

Caleb is a bright spot. He gets his shots though the offense and kept a bunch of balls alive with his hustle. Wonder if he might be a distance cousin of Kurt Rambis….Nik needs to get his offensive game under control. I get nervous everytime he touches the ball.
MikeSequim on December 27 at 6:13 p.m.
Vince,

We don’t get the Coug’s on the tube over here very often so I’ve only been able to watch them a few times. The rest of the games I get on the radio.

The limited times I’ve watched them on TV there appears to be some chemistry issues with certain line-ups on the floor, IMO. On the radio it’s hard to visualize this. Since I can’t get to Pullman too often to watch them, is this an issue that has just come up or is it just my view of those games? Since your there, I wondered what you thought about WSU’s style of play with certain line-ups on the floor?

Mike, Sequim
scottB on December 27 at 10:13 p.m.
Well… I’m glad I wasnt’ the only one thinking Nik was miserable tonight. Last year I was afraid everytime he touched the ball, but I had felt he had made solid improvement this year. That feeling unfortunately went away this game. Not that the breakdown was entirely his fault, cause it wasn’t, he just happened to have a lot of ill timed miscues that hurt the team bad this game. This game was definitely a pivotal game in this season, and watching it, I think it showed what looks to be our biggest issue with different line-ups.. and it has nothing to do with Baynes. The cougs have proved to be monumentally weak in the number 3 guard spot. aka… Nik/Marcus. I have no clue what Daven’s deal was tonight, but with Nik/Marcus playing the 3rd guard spot, be that in relief of Klay or in the true number 3 spot, our offense looses all control. Both of them have exhibited poor ball care/control and poor decision making all season, but you expect it to get better with game time, not worse. Our offense involves lots of passes, so if you are a guard and on the floor each possession the ball is likely to go through your hands at least once, which unfortunately means the weakest link is touching the ball lots, and tonight that showed.

If there’s a homework assignment for Vince, it should definitely be to spend 5 minutes talking to Daven to find out what’s up there… to see that many minutes only produce a single rebound and nothing else but 0’s on the stat line I’m sure has to be frustrating to him as much as it is to us. The cougs could really use Daven’s usual poise and contribution for upwards of 36 minutes a game this year, so I really hope he had the flu or something and not signs of shoulder issues.

One other slight disappointment tonight was DeAngelo… and only for the reason that he showed he has butter-fingers. The usual staple of our offense of drive-and-dish was either non-existent tonight, or the two times it was tried to DeAngelo, the ball slipped right on through the finger tips. I do wish he would have seen more minutes though. In general tonight we seemed to go small with our line-up… but if the number 3 spot proves to be an issue I hope Coach Bennett might atleast consider for a couple minutes trying out a big lineup and slide Caleb out to the 3 spot, with DeAngelo at 4 and Baynes at 5. You obviously run serious foul trouble risk with that lineup, but it might be worth a go for a few minutes each game.

Player of the game was definitely Caleb. Hands down, outstanding. He’s picking up where he left off last season with his strong performances late in the season and is building on that. Nice to see Taylor make a few buckets tonight as well, and in general play solid enough all around ball that you cant complain, but only say thanks for the solid effort. Klay played well, he still shows he’s a freshman when he has lapses is ball care.

Stat of the game is likely rebounds, it definitely kept us in the game. But solid runner-up for stat of the game is Assists… and the lack there of. 5 on the game total. That’s as much of a contributing factor to the loss as were the turnovers (18 ouch). The coug offense is built on the extra pass, and the drive-n-kick, or drive-n-dish, all which tally up the assist column. So if there’s only 5, that means the cougs either didn’t or were prevented from running their offense. The first assist didn’t come until 17 minutes into the first half, and the last assist came still with 12 minutes to play in game. So 29 minutes of Bennett basketball without an assist… not sure that’s still Bennett basketball.

The players and coaches have all said it, this was a hard loss to stomach. Lets hope they (players AND coaches) do learn from this one. I agree with 85Coug that Trent out coached Tony in this one.
prmillrd on December 28 at 8:04 a.m.
I think this game really showed how much we miss Low, Weaver, and Cowgill this year.
couglarr on December 28 at 8:57 a.m.
I agree with the description of Nik’s problems. He has good potential but is just not able to make it happen. He needs to go back to his fundamentals of ball handling and passing decisions and straighten that out.
Caleb was outstanding but I thought he was pooped out at the end. Aron needs to learn that its not a crime to get beat to the hoop and to let it go and look for the possible rebound. He needs to understand that his worth far exceeds his defensive play and that he is too valuable to make bad decisions in fouling. It is also not a crime for a guy as big as him to not have quick hands and the rest of the team needs understand and accept it and not make passes to him that will be difficult for him to handle.
I love watching TR make those layups, its like he is in another time zone some times, he is at his best when he is able to do those. I thought he was pooped at the end also but not as bad as Caleb. Also enjoy watching the makings of a great player in Klay, he is very talented and just needs to solidify his strengths.
junurz on December 28 at 10:20 a.m.
Make no mistake, Tony B needs to free up the reigns with the younger recruits and allow them to mesh with the starters for extended quality minutes, so the call of duty doesn’t put undue pressure to perform, but to aclimate and play through being tight and the mental mistakes. It will pay off in the long run, but the use of the starting 5 demands way too much effort that is telling towards the end of game inasmuch physically spent but emotionally that lends to the crucial mental turnovers. Tony’s getting outcoached with the X’s and O’s of the game, but at the same time the point (TR) being a senior needs to control the tempo and distribution of the ball. Quite telling was when LA was cashing in on 4 three balls, cranking it up before the defense was able to set up or they would post it down low, get the spacing off of quickness and dump it in. Taylor playing 40 plus minutes are way too demanding and it shows at the end of all the tough games. Your killing, your guys to have a chance to compete at the end. They’re spent.
Say Mike in Sequim, hi-def TV at Seven Cedars throughout the whole place and they oftentimes program the local stuff or will accommodate. I can’t get Satellite due to trees blocking the transmission in Pt. Townsend, but in Tacoma cable b fine.
MikeSequim on December 28 at 12:21 p.m.
junurz,

Thank’s, I’ll check it out!

Mike, Sequim
gslbball on December 28 at 12:58 p.m.
Too much obsession with defense, not enough focus on offense. Balance is the key.
RobH on December 28 at 5:11 p.m.
GSL,
Not sure you understand the phylosophy of the program, nor what was the basis for the last two years being in the tournament. Now is not the time to change. Do you think these guys are going to outscore other teams? It is a process, you give something to get something.

If you look at the Zags and UW from years past, they roll it out there and try and outscore everyone. It doesn’t work. They are coming back to defense, and when they play poorly against defensive teams, they lose to teams like Portland and PSU.

Everyone is freaking out right now. However, on one hand, WSU has not lost to a team that will not make the tourney, most likely, And they have not beaten a team that will make it. Had their chances vs. Baylor and LSU, but didn’t convert.

They need to sweep the bottom two P10 schools OSU and probably Oregon. Win 3 of four from the next two, probably Stanford and probably SC, split with the next two, probably Arizona and UW (maybe switch Cal and AZ here), and get a win in six chances vs. the top three Cal (or Az), ASU and UCLA. That is ten wins, and you are in the tourney.
gslbball on December 28 at 6:48 p.m.
RH, I appreciate your post, but it does not change my view that the Cougs are so focused on defense it has almost completely overtaken any emphasis on scoring. There are some guys that can score on this team. But scoring has been put on the back burner for them. Play all the tough defense you want, but the formula for this particular team is not working. The result will be losses to the better teams because of no scoring, not the lack of defense.
RobH on December 28 at 7:10 p.m.
GSL,

Maybe we are on different levels of expectation for this particular team and have a different vision for the program as a whole.

WSU needs ten wins from here on out to get to the tournament this year.

If they speed things up, in an attempt to improve offense, you think they have a better chance vs. UCLA, ASU, Arizona, UW? My answer is no. I think to continue to do the things they do well. Get back on D, defensive rebound, pack defense, low turnovers, winning by keeping the game in the 50’s.

As for the rest of the league, the best answer IMO, is to do what they do well, not trying to outdo what others do well. I want them to slow it down and make things brutal on Oregon, on Arizona, ASU, UW, Cal and Stanford.

I want them to concentrate on the formula that wins, that is defense, slowing things down, reducing turnovers and getting it inside on offense. You can spend your time trying to match the strength of others, I will make the game more difficult for my opponent and force my will on them.

And IMO, you prepare this team better for the future, and hope to get there this year.

I think they got out of sequence late, and the game got fast vs. LSU, and that is when we were not at our best.
MikeSequim on December 28 at 7:51 p.m.
RobH,

What tourney are you talking about? The PAC tourney or the NCAA? 10 more wins gets you into? You think under 20 wins will get us into the NCAA? I don’t! Finishing 2,3 or 4 in the PAC will, but not 10 more wins.

I agree with you on the direction of this team now but not for it’s future. GSL is right about needing some offense to go along with their great “D” and thats where the youth come in the next couple of years…not this year!

Mike, Sequim
RobH on December 28 at 8:06 p.m.
Mike,

FYI everyone gets into the Pac Ten tourney.

The Pac Ten is currently the third ranked conference in the nation and that will not change much since their are not a ton of NC games left. Anyone with an over ,500 record in the conference will get in. Ten wins will get you at least a tie for 4th, and into the tournament.

The other thing you look at, is all the losses, to this point are against teams that would be selected as at large teams in the tournement. Now if we get some losses against teams who won’t make it, without wins to balance that out, however if you get 10 Pac ten wins, that won’t happen.

At this point it is all about defense and pounding it inside, forcing your will on others.
MikeSequim on December 29 at 8:55 a.m.
RobH,

We beat nobody outside of our conference of any stature. Nobody! We haven’t beat anybody in our conference, yet! We lost 2 at home to good teams, but we lost on our floor!

I guess you missed my point on which tourney? Thanks for the Info on who gets in the PAC but I kinda new that! As for your theory on 10 wins and finishing tied for 4th, that could mean we would be the 5th PAC team in. I don’t think we are the 5th best in the league. Right now, UCLA, Ar ST., Stan., Ari., USC, then either Cal., UW or WSU are playing to those positions with the last three flexible.

As much as I would like to see us in the NCAA, it realistically looks like NIT unless we turn it up a notch.

Nothing wrong with defending your point, it just needs to be a little more sellable.

By the way, the game against the UW and the 2 that immediately follow will tell us alot about our Coug’s. At home, we must win, because we haven’t yet been able to determine if we can win away!
Go Coug’s

Mike, Sequim
RobH on December 29 at 10:50 a.m.
Mike,

The discussion was about IF we get ten wins. I know you are on record for thinking we will only get 8. I think it will be tough to get to ten as well, but it is far from over.

I will predict that any team in the Pac Ten with ten wins will be in.

WSU has one win over a top 100 team (MSU). 16 of the 18 games left are vs. top 100 teams. IF they end up with 9 wins over top 100 and IF they have no losses vs. 100+ teams (the worst losss right now is #55 LSU) they are in.

The committee really looks hard at wins vs. top 50, top 100, and losses vs. 100 plus teams in both at large bids and seedings.

I agree that the conference is looking tougher and tougher as things go on, Stanford is for real with their dismantling of Tex Tech.

If you throw out OSU, the Pac Ten only has three losses to +100 teams (UW to Portland and Oregon to SD and Oakland).

This is no cupcake conference, it will be brutal the rest of the way. I can even see a team with a 9-9 regular season record make it in.
RobH on December 29 at 6:39 p.m.
Mike,
As long as you are digging. Dig out when the last Pac 10 team had 10 regular season conference wins, and didn’t make the tourney.