K-State, WSU about to battle

So where were all these students Tuesday night? Wouldn’t it have been just as much fun to come out and watch your school rout an overmatched foe? Wait, it was a school night. That’s it. They were all in the library. Silly of me. Read on.

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• You know, I’m in the Ken Bone camp on this one. I want to see if Washington State can fight a team like Kansas State. Compete with them. Battle with them. Not settle for the easy way out. Not back down to pressure, attack it. Not be passive. If that happens, then this one is a win, no matter the final score. Because even if Reggie Moore and DeAngelo Casto play, there is no way they are 100 percent. And without everyone at 100 percent, WSU’s chances of pulling an upset are almost nil. But tonight can be a building block for next week, for the tournament in Hawaii, for the Pac-10. Over the next three months, WSU is going to face a lot of teams that play the game the way K-State does. And, for this team to be successful, it will have to meet aggression with aggression. The Cougars did not do that last year in Manhattan, but the beauty of the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood series is they get another chance. Here. On Apple Cup weekend. … So let’s say Casto plays and Moore doesn’t. That puts pressure on Marcus Capers, who Tony Bennett recruited as a point guard. Capers’ isn’t a classic, quick, ball-handling point, but he has evolved into a much more confident player than he was as a freshman and even last year. But this is a different type of pressure, a relentless pressure that wears you down physically and mentally. … The same can be said, in spades, for the inside players. K-State has a bunch of guys who play 15-22 minutes a game and that’s impossible for WSU to match. The Cougars’ bigs, whether the group includes Casto or not, have to stay out of foul trouble and on the court. If they don’t, the second half could be ugly. … Before we go, we want to pass on our Apple Cup advance.

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• That’s all for now. We’re switching over to Twitter, so catch our updates there (at Vinceg55). We’ll be back when we can. With the late start and our deadlines, we have to write quite a bit during the game. Until later …