COUGARS

Washington State used a near-perfect run of 3-point shooting to open a 19-point first half lead Wednesday, but the Cougars' Achilles heel started to show as the half wore on. Read on.
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• For some reason DeAngelo Casto didn't start tonight, though he was expected to. Sorry, don't know why just yet though we'll ask coach Ken Bone afterward. Anyway, the Achilles' heel? Inside play and it manifested itself in two fouls each on a bunch of Cougars, including Klay Thompson and Faisal Aden, dropping inside to help. (All of the Cougars' bigs, Casto, Brock Motum and Abe Lodwick, had trouble finishing inside, hitting 3 of 10 shots.) Aden, who sat the first few minutes of the game with heat on his left knee, entered the game at the 13:41 mark. And drained three of his first four shots. But the fouls added up. ... The Cougars drained five 3-pointers in 2 minutes 36 seconds midway through the first half, building a 25-6 lead. The Zags only answer in the stretch was a single Kelly Olynyk free throw.... But the Gonzaga fast break finally started going late in the half. Free throws and fastbreak buckets led to a 11-0 GU run that cut the WSU lead to 30-24 at intermission. The last bucket WSU scored was a 3 by Aden with 5:10 left. ... The Cougar lead was only six despite holding Gonzaga's leading scorer, Steven Gray, to three points in the first 20 minutes. ... Aden's 8 led WSU, with Casto and Patrick Simon with six apiece. ... One bright note for the Cougars, they were getting a push on the boards. ...

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• That's it for now. We'll be on Twitter (vinceg55) where we are retweeting Jim Meehan's updates. Until later ...

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