WSU’s defeat at Cal, the next morning

Another day-after post about a game that got away. Didn’t WSU go through this just a few years ago? We’ll see if history repeats itself anymore. But enough of that, let’s get going on Saturday’s defeat at Cal. Read on for thoughts, links and whatever else I can find.

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• Washington State: You sit and watch games like yesterday’s and you see promise, potential, possibilities. And problems. They’re all there in one package. How much are these Cougars willing to work on the latter? That will tell the tale of this season – and the seasons to come. The effort on the court has been there, at least a great majority of the time. But, as Marcus Capers said afterward, there are just some areas that need to be shored up. Are they areas that are unfixable, like an inability to compete physically? With some elite teams nationally, sure, but not against anyone in the Pac-10. A complete, nearly error free 40 minutes Saturday and the Cougars upset the conference’s best team, on its home court. That should tell you what the possibilities are. But those little breakdowns, like pausing too long in the key, fixating on the ball defensively while your guy sneaks out to the corner for a big 3, have to stop. Such lapses are mental, not physical, and need to improve if this team is to fulfill its promise. … Surprisingly, there was not a lot of discussion after the defeat. The key elements were obvious I guess. … Klay Thompson was unstoppable in the first half then Cal’s Patrick Christopher decided to play like a senior in the second, fighting through screens, grabbing, bumping, doing whatever it took to take Thompson out of the offense. It worked as Thompson got off just seven shots after halftime, only one in a 7-minute stretch when Cal made its big rally to take the lead. … That physical defense led to a key late turnover and Ken Bone’s technical, which kick-started the Bears’ final game-deciding run. Was Thompson fouled on the play? Probably. But as he said, that’s the way it is. You have to play through it. In theory, it all evens out. … OK, enough of that. Let’s get to the links. … Here’s the complete version of my game story. The abridged version in the paper eliminated the technical, so we’ll stay with this. It also has President Elson S. Floyd’s statement on Jim Sterk’s departure. Doesn’t this seem a little premature, since San Diego State has yet to make an announcement? I mean, we know Sterk has the job and will be introduced Monday, but shouldn’t have WSU waited until then to make this announcement? It’s seems the courteous thing to do. … Freelancer Howie Stalwick also had his piece in the News Tribune and other papers. … From the Bay Area, we have this story in the Chronicle (and no, Bone was not arguing about Thompson’s 3-pointer) and this one from the Mercury News.

• Now on to the quotes …

• DeAngelo Casto on the Cougars: “We’ve proven that all year. We can hang with the best of them.”

• Casto on how to avoid meltdowns: “You’ve got to dig in. You’ve got to find heart, something within you that won’t let that happen. On the road, you have to fight even harder.”

• Casto on Thompson’s first-half performance: “He’s dangerous. When you get a guy like that going, you give him the rock and tell him to keep shooting until the fire’s gone. He didn’t disappoint anybody.”

• Casto on the blocked shots: “We told our guards to force their guards to drive. When you have guys driving … it’s on the big to sweep up what’s coming to the rim. We just didn’t want them to beat us outside, though they still lit us up a little from outside. We did the best we could.”

• Bone on the Cougars’ performance: “They just competed as hard as they could.”

• Bone on Patrick Christopher: “Christopher a few times had isolation situations and, shoot, a few times he looked like Michael Jordan out there with a few of those shots.”

• Bone on the blocked shots: “That’s a good thing and a bad thing. … Sometimes those blocked shots can help a lot, and many times they did tonight. But they can cost you at times.”

• Marcus Capers on guarding Jerome Randle: “Sometimes it feels like I’m guarding Speedy Gonzalez or the Road Runner, something like that.”

• Capers on Christopher’s defense on Thompson: “It was just physical. He was right into him. Playing to the crowd, his adrenaline had picked up. He knew being on his home court he was going to get away with a few things and he took advantage.”

• Capers on the difference between young teams and experience teams: “With a lot of young kids, we get excited when we’re up. … We look at it like, ‘there’s 8 minutes left for us to hold on.’ They look at it like ‘there’s 8 minutes left for us to turn it around.’ “

• Thompson on his first half and Christopher’s defense: “It felt good. It would have been nice if it had continued in the second half. … He’s a tough defender but I should have been more aggressive. I think I took about four shots.”

• Randle on his halftime talk: “The message was this is our championship on the line. We came out a little sluggish. I just wanted everyone to know that if we come out the same as we did in the first half, we’re going to lose this game. We have to come out with a little more energy. … We obviously didn’t want this one game to come back and haunt us. We just went out and put it all out there.”

• Cal coach Mike Montgomery on the game: “I thought there was a potential for us to be flat and we were. It was tough. These kids had a great emotional effort on Thursday and I think Washington State is a good basketball team.”

• Montgomery on defense vs. Thompson in the second half: “Just guard him. You can’t let him catch with room. We got screened in the first half. He was coming off screens and had room. When he has room, he’s a great shooter.”

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• Around the Pac-10: The questions can stop. Washington won a road game, defeating Stanford 78-61 at Maples. The ending of this one different than the rest of UW’s road trips this season. … The Cardinal, just like they did Thursday, rallied, but they couldn’t get past the Huskies. … The UW road woes haven’t lasted 27 years, like Oregon State’s problems in Tucson have. But even those ended Saturday night, as the Beavers won 63-55. They backcut the UA defense to death. … The Ducks are still struggling, as Arizona State shoots them down for the outside, 61-51. … USC and UCLA meet again today, with two Serbians facing off over control of Los Angeles (that’s figuratively, not literally).

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• That’s all for this morning. We’ll be back as events warrant, though tonight I’m trying to be a good husband and, now don’t laugh, attend a musical with my wife. Maybe I’ll keep a play-by-play. Until later …