COUGARS

FROM CORVALLIS -- It's just about time to head to Eugene, but first, we have our usual Friday day-after-but-also-day-between-games post with links, a Pac-12 roundup and some more quotes from last night's WSU win. Read on.

...

The focus of our game story was Washington State's impressive end to its conference road losing streak. They were 0-5 this season entering last night's game. We also had a postgame blog post giving a brief overview of the win. ... The AP has this recap. ... Here's the view from the Oregon State side, where coach Craig Robinson said the Beavers had "a horrible outing." ... ESPN.com examines the rebuilding process with WSU's football program. ... One note I forgot to mention in my story -- the Cougars scored 26 points off turnovers, 22 of those in the first half. That's a lot.

Wrapping up the rest of the Pac-12 action ...

Oregon 82, Washington 57: First-place didn't suit the Huskies very well, as the Ducks completely destroyed them at Matthew Knight Arena. UW is now tied with California for first place in the Pac-12.

California 75, USC 49: Allen Crabbe led the Bears with 19 points as they became the most recent team to treat the Galen Center as if it were their own home floor.

UCLA 72, Stanford 61: The wheels are coming off a bit for the Cardinal, who can't seem to find a way to win in Los Angeles. The Bruins won despite a ton of turnovers.

Arizona State 57, Utah 52: The Utes are still without a Pac-12 road win, as Trent Lockett returned to help the Sun Devils.

Arizona 71, Colorado 57: The Wildcats won with a short rotation, while the Buffaloes squandered a chance to make a statement before a national television audience.

Here are some more quotes from last night's WSU win ...

Coach Ken Bone

(On this being the best WSU has played on the road) "You know, I think it was. I think it was the best game we played. We had good focus, we played really well together as a team, we shared the ball well. We played a very good game against a good team."

(On Brock Motum) "He’s scoring for us, and he’s doing some other things, but primarily he’s doing a great job of scoring."

(On WSU being ready for all of OSU's defensive looks) "It looked like it at times tonight. When you make shots, that helps you look better. I have to watch the video to know more how well we excuted. Sometimes when you make shots it makes up for lack of execution, but I think we executed pretty well and I liked the way we shared the ball together."

(On Reggie Moore) "He did a good job. He was aggressive against that 1-3-1 and he really handled the ball well tonight."

(On attacking OSU's presses and traps) "Just spacing and ball movement, staying spread out, moving the ball, being unselfish to share."

(On WSU's defense) "I feel like our defense was decent but down the stretch they still came down and hit shots like they are capable of doing. I don’t know if it was as much our defense as it was it didn’t seem Oregon State played as well as they’re capable of playing. I like the fact that our defense did a decent job but I think it was partially that Oregon State didn’t play as well as they’re capable of playing."

(On if this is what he's been waiting for from D.J. Shelton) "Yeah, but on the other hand he finally got a chance. I think I only played him three miuntes or four minutes last game and he didn’t play at all the game before that. Really whether it’s been three minutes or tonight however many minutes he played, he’s really done a good job, minutes per game. I just haven’t played him a lot because Brock and Abe have been playing really well.

"I would say he’s really kept a great attiude and every day in practice he brings great effort. We keep telling him, I told him the other day, I know I sound like a broken record but hang in there, your time is going to come because you’re getting better and better and when that time comes, you’ve got to be ready to go. If not, you’re only going to end up hurting your chances. He maximized his opportunity tonight."

...

Junior guard Reggie Moore

(On WSU's defense) "Just get out on their shooters. They’ve got a lot of good shooters, (Ahmad) Starks, (Jared) Cunningham, No. 55 (Roberto Nelson). They’ve got some good shooters so we just got out and tried to get them to miss some shots."

(On being aggressive against OSU's defense) "My coach always tells me and my teammates always tell me nobody can stay in front of me, so I just kind of took that into mind and just attacked the basket, looking to score. When you look to score they’ve got to step up on you so I started dishing off."

(On Brock Motum) "Brock’s one of the best players in the conference, if not the best player. He’s just dominating. He’s dominating the paint, he’s dominating the three, he’s playing good defense. He’s playing all-around great basketball."

(On attacking all of OSU's defenses) "Whatever you do, we’ve got an answer for it. If you want to press us, I’m going to go to the hoop. If you want to stay back we’re going to shoot some threes and hit ‘em. As long as they keep pressing us, I’m going to keep attacking."

(On D.J. Shelton's game) "He’s good, we needed his presence inside. He was a good presence inside. I was going in there missing layups but he was finishing them. He was good. That’s what I told him when he first came here -- 'you can be a beast if you want to.' Today, he wanted to."

...

Junior forward Brock Motum

(General) "It was a great game by the team. In the first half the scoring was spread out, so that gave them a lot of things to look at. I think it’s a tougher matchup when the scoring’s more spread."

(On attacking OSU's defense) "Their 1-3-1 they play on defense is always tough to go against. We spend the majority of the week with some drills to sort of exploit their 1-3-1 and see how we can attack it rather than be passive. And I think we did a pretty good job of that in the first half so they couldn’t do it as much in the second."

(On playing against the press) "I think with those things if you get caught on the back foot they can stay with it, but if you’re aggressive and attack it, it’s hard to stay with it when it’s not working."

(On Shelton's game) "It’s a whole another dimension. Offensively he’s a threat to finish on the o-boards, he’s another presence inside down low so it’s hard to matchup that way and defensively his length takes up a lot in the key so it’s hard to penetrate."

(On the completeness of the team effort) "If we can do this for the rest of the year, I think we’ll be in good shape to win some more games. I think we did a really good job tonight, the whole team stepped up."

(On WSU's defense) "Defensively we just had to come together and get stops. Cunningham is a great player, he got hot early, then we wanted to take away the 3 and force him to drive. We forced him to put it on the floor more and rotate and make other guys beat us."

...

All for now. We'll try to check in later today from Eugene.

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple

---

---