Cougars hope to salvage Bay Area trip at Cal on Saturday

BERKELEY, Calif. – Washington State can still salvage a split from its Bay Area road trip and emerge from the third weekend of Pac-12 play with a winning conference record. But to do so the Cougars will have to play immeasurably better in Saturday’s 1 p.m. game at California than they did in Thursday’s 84-54 loss at Stanford.

The Cougars (9-7, 2-2 Pac-12) had shown improvement as the pushed to a 2-1 conference record out of the gate, only losing to No. 13 Oregon. But the Cougars were outworked against the Cardinal, giving up a 43-25 rebounding advantage.

“It takes work to win and we didn’t work in the game. We had mental breakdowns across the board, and that’s on us as players. We just have to put it all back together and come back ready for the next game,” WSU center Conor Clifford said.