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Somber Cougars can’t explain effort

Posted by Vince Grippi

Feb. 6, 2009 7:35 a.m. • 9 comments

COUGARS

Talking with the Washington State players after the 65-54 loss to Stanford on Thursday night, there was a grudging admiration of the way the Cardinal shot. Anytime a team hits a hair under 70 percent against you from beyond the 3-point arc, there has to be at least some acknowledgement that, yes, those guys were hot. But still, all three players we had time to talk with quickly pointed the finger at the crimson uniforms. Too many open looks. Too slow on rotations. Just all around too reactive on defense, according to coach Tony Bennett. As can be expected, it was a somber group of Cougars who trudged down the Maples Pavilion tunnel and out the door to their bus. Now they have to regroup, get refocused and get ready to play a Cal team that pounded the Huskies in the second half Thursday. Read on for links.

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• Usually on the day after a game, we have more of the players’ thoughts to share. But with the late finish last night, our conversations were short, and we used the best of them in our game story, the long version of which you can read here, if you haven’t already. One of the best comments, from senior Daven Harmeling, ended my gamer, but didn’t make the newspaper story because of space considerations. “They were hungry. We were the opposite of that.”

If you’re hungry for more on the game, here’s freelancer Howie Stalwick’s story that appeared in the P-I among other papers. And here’s the Bay Area view, with Jake Curtis’ piece in the Chronicle and Darren Sabedra’s story from the Mercury News. And if you’re not sated with Pac-10 news, here’s the Chronicle’s story on Cal’s pounding of Washington by Rusty Simmons, Andrew Greif, writing for the Arizona Republic, had this gamer on ASU keeping Oregon imperfect in conference – Herb Sendek’s 300th victory – and Bruce Pascoe watched as Arizona held off Oregon State for its first road win of the year.

• There’s not much more to say, other than add it would surprise the heck out of me if the Cougars don’t bounce back against Cal. The Bears have been up-and-down recently (like everyone else in the Pac-10), and have slipped a little offensively against the good defensive teams. Thursday night, WSU wasn’t one of those. If they want to have a chance against the Bears, it will have to be Saturday.

•••

• That’s it for now. We’ll be back this evening with our advance for Saturday’s game. Till then …

Nine comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Grady on February 06 at 8:47 a.m.
A bad night for a (mostly) young team. It’s rare that our defense lets us down like that.

But hey, play well against Cal and we can find ourselves at 5-6 in conference with the Oregon schools coming to town. A split is a success on this road trip, regardless of how we get it.
TommyCoug on February 06 at 9:35 a.m.
Though I live in NorCal, I didnot attend the game. Weather and construction around Maples at Stanford make parking and getting to the court quite difficult. However, I listened to a Stanford broadcast of the game.

They remarked several times about Bennett and concern about the refs. However, when an opponent shoots 70% from 3 point line and that delivers 9 of them for 27 points, that can be hard to overcome.

However, the broadcasters, remarked about Casto “fumbling” a sure dunk shot, a number of steals from Baynes (he was dribbling, etc. and double/triple teamed…fouled and not called, I don’t know). They also remarked that Harmeling seemed tentative and not poised in his shooting even after making his first or second 3 point shot…Taylor misses front end of 1 + 1 to try and close the gap. Nothing went right.

The major point is that this is 2 games in a row (Arizona) and some others this year when we have been in the game or lead at halftime and then it falls apart. This is becoming the signature of this years team.

Unfortunately, I do not expect a “comeback” against the California Bears. This team doesn’t posess the elements to get the job done over a full game…and it certainly appears that they have lost their confidence (if they have even had any).

Call me pessimistic if you want…but, playing as they have been lately, I see no more than 1 or 2 more wins for the year and that includes the Pac-10 Tournament. Therefore, no post season this year!
garlandcoug on February 06 at 10:09 a.m.
Of course I could not see the game either, but 8 turnovers by your post players is not good. Go ahead and call me pessimistic!
OlyCoug on February 06 at 10:41 a.m.
Tommy, last night was depressing. It shouldn’t be surprising how up and down this team is. I still think they’ll get four more wins, probably by sweeping the home games. At least, that is what I must tell myself as I gear up to make two six hour drives to Pullman in the next month…

The Cal game? Jeez, it’s tough to be optimistic. But I was not optimistic about ASU, either. And look what happened there.

Go Cougs.
wazzuwyatt on February 07 at 6:37 a.m.
I have to agree with you, TommyCoug. I can’t understand how the Cougs fall apart for no apparent reason, even though they start out fine several times. THis is not going to be a good year, but I do believe those freshman will grow and develop into doing well, maybe being good like the 3 stars who graduated last year. The future will be better than the present.