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WSU ends regular season with a loss

Posted by Vince

March 6, 2010 9:44 p.m. • 7 comments

COUGARS

The Cougars said their goodbyes to Mac Court on Saturday, playing the role of accommodating guest. Their most important going-away gift? How about 36 missed shots? Or 21 missed 3-point attempts? They certainly didn’t give this one away – their 11 turnovers were four less than they had in the first half Thursday – but the shot themselves out of it. Our unedited game story is on the link, so read on …

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• Here’s our game story …

EUGENE, Ore. – This time there was no doubt.

The Pac-10 regular season may have finished the same way as it began for the Washington State University Cougars, but their inability to make shots ensured there would be no controversy at the end of Saturday’s loss to Oregon.

The Cougars shot miserably in the first half, even worse to start the second and, despite another rally, fell 74-66 to the Ducks in the final Pac-10 game scheduled for McArthur Court.

A crowd of 8,761 turned out to say goodbye to Oregon’s two seniors, diminutive Tajuan Porter and injured Joevan Catron, and to see if the Ducks could avoid finishing in the Pac-10 cellar for the second consecutive year.

They did. And they were replaced by WSU, which, thanks to nine defeats in its last 11 games, fell to 6-12 in conference, 16-14 overall. The fact no Pac-10 team had ever had more conference wins and finished last was little consolation to the Cougars. But some things were.

“What we’re trying to do is play 40 minutes of effort and I thought we gave pretty close to 40 minutes of effort tonight,” WSU coach Ken Bone said. “We made mistakes like every team, and we didn’t shoot the ball very well, but I thought our effort was good and that’s important.

“They’ve beat us twice. (So) we’re looking forward to going down to LA and seeing what we can do.”

That will happen Wednesday, when the ninth-seeded Cougars will face No. 8 Oregon in their first Pac-10 tourney game for the fourth time in five years, with the winner moving on to play top-seeded Cal on Thursday.

They might not have the same lead Duck, however. A television report Saturday said Oregon coach Ernie Kent had been fired Feb. 22, with the dismissal effective at the end of the season.

Kent would not comment after the game, though athletic director Mike Bellotti issued a statement through an spokesperson.

“Ernie and I have talked,” said Belloti, “and we will continue to talk throughout the Pac-10 Tournament.”

If it was Kent’s swan song in Eugene with Oregon (15-15, 7-11) – he’s been the Ducks’ head coach for 13 years, has guided them to the NCAA Tournament five times, including two Elite Eight trips – he went out with a convincing win.

And Porter, a thorn in WSU’s side for four years, helped make it happen, with 12 second-half points. He teamed with freshman E.J. Singler, brother of Duke All-American Kyle, to score Oregon’s first 14 second-half points (Porter five, Singler nine of his 15) that built what would be an insurmountable nine-point lead.

Insurmountable because, up to that point, WSU couldn’t make a shot. The Cougars were 10 for 36 from the field, 28 percent, 5 minutes into the second half.

“We have to take our time, get an easy score and try to get back in the game,” said Nik Koprivica, who hit just 2 of 6 shots but finished with 10 points and seven rebounds. “Not let them get up by 15 and then try to chase them.”

Actually, Oregon’s biggest lead was 17 (60-43 with 6:24 remaining) and though the Cougars finally started hitting from long-range – WSU sank four of its last five but finished 8 for 29 beyond the arc – they couldn’t get closer than seven. For the game, WSU was 20 of 56 (35.7 percent) from the floor.

Klay Thompson, who hit 7 of his 11 shots Thursday in the Oregon State loss, put up twice as many attempts – a Pac-10 high for him – but made just seven. He was 4 of 14 from beyond the arc, the attempts a career high, and finished with 22 points and eight rebounds. His 23-footer with 1:52 left lifted him over the 1,000 career-point mark, the third-fastest Cougar to hit the mark.

Asked if he felt it was a better weekend for him, Thompson chuckled.

“Better, besides today,” he said. “At least there were four or five really open shots that were frustrating not to hit. But you can’t lose your confidence because that’s the worst thing anybody can do.”

“I think we’re just not hitting,” said DeAngelo Casto, who did make 5 of his 8 attempts and 7 of 9 free throws, finishing with 17 points to go with a game-high 10 rebounds. “We’ve been in a slump for a while now.”

Part of WSU’s shooting woes can be attributed to two differences in this Duck team as opposed to the one that won in Pullman in a controversial double overtime.

Oregon played a lot of 2-3 matchup zone, something missing earlier, and got a huge contribution from junior LeKendric Longmire, who didn’t play a second in the first game.

Longmire hit 7 of 12 shots, led the Ducks with 17 points, 10 rebounds and hustle, running down two key loose balls when WSU was trying to rally.

And the zone, which seemed to scramble after every pass and challenge any inside look?

“They were active, but we still got every shot we wanted to,” said Reggie Moore, who had six assists, the most he’s had since mid-January. “I mean we got great shots. We got Nic with open 3s, we had DeAngelo under the basket, Klay wide-open 3s, we got our shots, we just weren’t knocking them down.”

Which was the difference.

“We rely a lot on our outside shooting and when we’re missing shots, it’s hard on us,” Koprivica said.

Now the Cougars must head into the Pac-10 Tournament on a three-game losing streak, their third of the year. They have never lost four consecutive games.

“I’m really excited to see them again in four days,” said Koprivica, WSU lone upperclassman. “I want to see how they’re going to look again because I think we’re better than they are.”

•••••

• That’s it for now. We’ll be back in the morning. Until then …

Seven comments on this post so far. Add yours!

85coug on March 06 at 10:15 p.m.
clank…that was painful to watch
avboden on March 06 at 11:52 p.m.
at least everyone knows we’re really 7-11(tied for 8/9) and oregon is 6-12 making them the pac10 floormat two years in a row….what small consolation that is
Portland_Coug on March 07 at 1:04 a.m.
Klay is correct….just lost confidence and after 40 years of watching and listening to Cougar basketball, I can only ask, “Is Terry Porter still available…or, maybe the “red sweater” coach could light a fire? I taped the Duck game….worse then a dental appointment. I predict an easy Duck sweep for this season. :-(
philip38 on March 07 at 6:08 a.m.
Here comes the blast. Cover your eyes if you hate cynical criticism. You all know what Leo Durocher says about nice guys. And Ken Bone is a ferociously nice guy. In case you are too young to remember, Durocher said famously: “Nice guys finish last.”

Bone inherited two of the best young man-to-man defenders in the country, Marcus and DeAngelo.

He also inherited two members of the 19 and under USA university champions, Klay and DeAngelo. Only Butler Univ. contributed two such players to that USA roster—Hayward and Howard. And what did Butler do with two such players? Butler is a top 25 team and went 18-0 in its conference. Hello?

And yet Bone decided to throw caution to the wind and play a passivity inducing zone defense most of the time, even though Bennett’s defensive coach, Ben Johnson, was still an assistant to Bone on the sideline.

I said earlier on. Live by the 3, die by the 3. Bone took the leap and landed far short of the mark. The team is in utter confusion. His rotation is like a twisted mass of body structure that no chiropractor could unravel.

Bone said he has but one great 3-point shooter. He failed to develop the confidence of the talented 3 point shooters Lodwick and Harthun by yanking them at every missed shot, The offense was lopsided to begin with, focused so heavily on Thompson and the limited Reggie Moore, a Fresno State type of talent that no one else in the Pac 10 really wanted.

Here’s another point. EJ Singler, a high school teammate of Michael Harthun, comes in as a freshman — starts and contributes more in his freshman year than the superior Harthun has in two years. Harthun, the second all-time leading scorer at the South Medford High where he and the Singlers matricutlated, was not given the opportunity to develop. His few 3 attempts up til last night hit the front rim, a sure sign a player is zeroing in from long range. But he misses, he gets yanked,

Bone yanks players at every miscue, and every missed shot, except for the non expendable Klay Thompson. Let us bow down to Klay, our supposed savior, who’s been playing figuratively, if not nominally FOR every other Pac 10 team in the league besides the Cougars for the past two months.

Bone burned Bjornstadt’s redshirt. Foolishly. Bad decisions by a nice guy.

Tony Bennett’s had a tough season at UVA, too. Sterk’s gone. It was a bad development all the way around. This Cougar team, with high-power potential left in the garage, is whimpering down the road on 3 cylinders.
TommyCoug on March 07 at 3:02 p.m.
Phil Paulette, the state of Oregon’s “heralded” Lodwick and Harthun have been missing shots for 2 years. Might they have been “overhyped?” Certainly, Klay Thompson has had 2 years of looking great or good at times and then doing a “disappearing” act.

Vince indicates that the “pre-conference” schedule and results may have given us false hopes. However, we played Gonzaga and Kansas State (both better than any team in the Pac-10) better than we played any team or game (even the few victories) against Pac-10 foes!

I am not sure how good, bad or suspect we were this year…certainly, I didn’t expect them to win the Pac-10 (mediocre) conference championship. However, post the pre-season, I thought we might have a chance to finish as high as 5th…then I began to see the trend…although, I would have never picked us as “sole occupier” of 10th place before the season began. Later, I called it just that way!

Ernie Kent may be gone at Oregon…probably as much (or more) for other issues as basketball loses. One thing I will say for Ernie…he has been a nemisis to the Wazzu Cougs over the years and I have seen him out coach and surprise many of his peers in the conference and in the NCAA’s. No doubt, Bellotti has a high profile coach in mind…like maybe Mark Few of Gonzaga?

I don’t know and haven’t met Ken Bone. However, I have watched several games and currently I’m not infatuated with his offense or defense nor his overall coaching style in general and lack of motivation of the players.

Every team, even USC with their troubles, has played as well or better the 2nd half of the conference season (and that includes Arizona, Stanford, Oregon State and Oregon) than our Cougs have. Yes, despite our 2 victories over USC and Arizona.

I don’t see how we beat Oregon on Wednesday…that would be 1 out of 3 or 33% and that’s probably above our field goal percentage of the last few ballgames!!

With all of that…I will be pulling again for the Cougs on Wednesday…I am still a loyal Coug supporter…just a disenchanted one.

GO COUGS!!
Coug4Ever on March 07 at 4:02 p.m.
God some of you are such whiners it makes me sick! Holy cow, we hit a rough stretch, and you all jump off the bandwagon like it’s on fire! What fair weather fans we Cougs are!

Here are the facts. When it comes to quality players, Tony left the cupboard pretty bare. I’m good friends with a close associate of the EWU program. They said when we played them early in the season that the only Pac 10 talents they saw on our roster were Casto, Moore and Thompson. That’s it! Even Bone decried our lack of Pac 10 caliber talent. He had more shooters at PSU for crying out loud.

I think what we saw in the second half of the season was a team that wore down. These kids are right out of high school, or a year removed. Our travel schedule is the worst in the conference. The games are longer, more intense and more physical. Practices are more numerous, longer and and higher intensity. Bone won early games with a very short bench. The only players to come off the bench and actually contribute much were Thames and Nik.

I think that Bone went to the zone for four reasons. It works at ASU and OSU to disguise a lack of talent and quickness. Second, it saves legs and when you have a lack of bench talent, you need to save the energy of the starters. Third Klay is a horrible man-up defender. And fourth aside from Casto, we have no presence inside that can man-up against most teams big men.

Phil if Harthun and Lodwick are such good shooters then I’m sure Bone would have seen that in practice and games. My guess is that they were great high school players, but not talented enough to make that jump to this level. Lodwick got his chance early, he was a starter for a good portion of the year. I don’t recall him lighting it up on any given night. My guess is that Harthun just isn’t good enough either. You know that Bone was looking for any spark that would work and he likes shooters. If Harthun could fill it up in practice, then I’m sure he would have gotten his chance in games.

And Phil, what’s this crap about Reggie Moore. Limited? Excuse me? He set a record for assists by a freshman at WSU. He can shoot the three and he can penetrate. He’s a FRESHMAN!!!!!! He will get better, stronger, smarter. There were nights this past year when Moore was easily our best player. He put this team on his back and carried us to a few victories. The problem is that Thompson was such a non-entity on so many nights, that he was asked to do a lot more than you should ask of any freshman. I also think he wore down as the season went on.

The guy I don’t get is Thompson. I want him to be better, to be consistent, to show better heart and effort. He’s an enigma that Bone has to figure out. I think on a lot of nights, we were better off with Klay on the bench and Thames in the game.

Bone is a good coach, but he has a system for which we currently don’t have the talent. I doubt that Bennett could have won more games this year than Bone did. Why do you think Tony was so quick to leave? I think he saw the writing on the wall. When UVA was the only school to come calling, he couldn’t change his zip code fast enough. He knew that with this group of kids it would be a struggle to stay out of the cellar, and with that kind of turnaround he was going to have to call Pullman home for at least two more years. Tony isn’t much of a recruiter. Yes he got us Thompson and Thames. But Casto fell into his lap thanks to teams being scared off by his academics. None of the other players on this team established themselves as Pac 10 caliber. By far our best recruit this past year was Moore, and that was a Bone get. So get off Bone’s back. The players need to hit the weights and the training table to bulk up. They need to improve their endurance. I also have a feeling that a few current scholarships will be coming open next year, as We need to get more talent on the floor.
TommyCoug on March 08 at 12:31 p.m.
Coug4Ever, don’t forget that Bone made trips to secure the commitments of Modum and Thames…and that they were recruits by Tony Bennett to play in his system. So, so far, Moore and the kid from Portland are his only additions. The kid from Ephrata committed to WSU 2 years ago…so the player from Florida is Bone’s addition for 2010.

The point is if the players don’t fit the system you are trying to run…maybe the coach(s) adapt and find a compromise that fits the players and talents they have…especially your first year as coach. T. Bennett recruited for defense first, scoring second. Bone’s strategy appears to be exactly opposite.

I am not that confident about next year…either the players adapt (along with hitting the training table, weight room are paramount, plus shooting practice in the gym) or the coach finds a system that fits his talent pool.

Bone’s comment about “more shooters at PSU” suggests he won’t move…therefore, we are probably going to see the same style of play next year and beyond…for as long as he lasts.