Anemic Cougars fade out
CORVALLIS, Ore. — Washington State knows it plays sound enough defense to withstand a prolonged offensive drought. So when it took the Cougars nearly all of the first 12 minutes to score six points, they knew the game was far from over — so far, in fact, that they were able to take a 21-19 halftime lead.
But when WSU came out in the second half and repeated its offensive anti-heroics, there was no comeback in order. The Cougars scored three points in the first 71/2 minutes after halftime, fell behind by 15, and lost 58-51 to Oregon State at Gill Coliseum. The loss dropped the Cougars a half-game behind Oregon State into eighth place in the Pac-10 men’s basketball race.
After the game, head coach Dick Bennett took twice his usual time to talk to his team and cool off in the locker room before speaking to the media.
“We play some of the worst basketball that I can imagine,” he said. “I just don’t understand how we can come out so unready both halves and turn the ball over as much as we do and expect to have any kind of chance.
“We have maybe 10 to 15 minutes of good basketball in a game. And often it’s enough to make it a little competitive. But that’s about it. I just am so very disappointed in what we’re doing and that includes everybody.”
WSU (10-11, 5-7 Pac-10) had defeated OSU by 18 in Pullman four weeks earlier, but the Beavers clamped down on the Cougs’ interior game, forcing them to chuck up 25 3-pointers. They missed their first seven tries in the first-half freeze, and then missed the first four in the second half.
And while the Beavers (13-9, 5-6) have lost only once this season before the home crowd, which numbered 5,834 Thursday night, head coach Jay John was more pleased than usual with his team’s effort.
“They broke us when we played in Pullman; we didn’t defend,” John said. “I think it’s pretty obvious that our defense was exceptional tonight, just a great effort by all the guys that played to defend.”
An off night for WSU’s Jeff Varem not surprisingly went hand in hand with the non-existent post play on offense. Varem had eight first-half rebounds, but didn’t collect one in the second half as Bennett sat him for 10 minutes, putting him back in with only 1 minute, 50 seconds to play after Robbie Cowgill fouled out. The senior, WSU’s second-leading scorer on the year, had six points.
“He chokes our offense,” Bennett said. “He holds the ball, and he’s turnover-prone. He doesn’t always play hard. It looks like he does, but he only goes … he’s just not a sound player. And with a team like ours, unless he’s going great guns, we can’t run any offense with him.”
The Cougar defense was also off from its usual pitch. The Beavers shot 58.8 percent from the field in the second half and also got to the line 23 times after the break, sinking 17 of them.
David Lucas scored 17 points and two players who missed the first game, J.S. Nash (suspension) and Kyle Jeffers (injury), combined to score 15 points for the Beavers.
For the Cougars, Thomas Kelati had 17 points and was 5 of 11 from beyond the 3-point arc, while Daven Harmeling chipped in 10 points off the bench.
WSU pulled back to within four points twice down the stretch, but was never able to narrow the gap any closer after the ugly second-half opening.
“I have no idea why we do that. It seems like every time we come out of the locker room, we’re flat,” Harmeling said. “It takes the other team kicking our butt to respond. But the second half they came out and started giving it to us pretty hard and we took too long to fight back. That’s something we have to change.”
Notes
Guard Randy Green’s stress reaction in his left leg is still a problem, and he will sit out the next two weeks in the hope that he will be ready in time to play Arizona on Feb. 24. … Guard Isaiah Simmons, who had been dismissed from the team in January because of academics, played three minutes one day after rejoining the squad.