WSU about ready to face Stanford without Moore
COUGARS • UPDATED: 4:15 P.M.
We sit pretty high in Maples Pavilion. Higher than any place in the Pac-10. Higher than a couple Horizon flights I've taken. And I forgot my binoculars. So if something happens today that I miss, sorry. I just couldn't see it. Anyhow, we have some news and notes, so read on. Update on link.
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• UPDATE: No Reggie Moore tonight. He's in street clothes watching his teammates shoot, his hands folded in front of his face. The reason? He has been suspended indefinitely due to the misdemeanor possession of marijuana and paraphernalia charges filed on Jan. 4 by the Whitman County prosecutor's office. According to a statement from WSU, coach Ken Bone waited until he had evaluated the details of the situation and has decided to suspended Moore now. He'll reevaluate the situation next week. In the time since this occurred, WSU said, Bone has had an opportunity to gather information and confirm details before taking action. Asked what had changed, a WSU spokesperson said there was no change in the particulars of the case, what has changed is how Bone decided to handle the situation. I do know Moore was in court on Wednesday morning, had an attorney appointed and a motions hearing was scheduled for Feb. 10. ... If you want my thoughts on the matter, I believe – and that's all it is, a belief borne of my reading of the situation – Bone is under intense pressure here. I'm not sure this was his decision, because as far as I can tell, nothing has changed since Dec. 11, when Moore's at the time unoccupied dorm room was searched. Yes, according to the charges, there was some marijuana and a pipe found on his side of the room. But we've known that for a couple weeks, Bone for even longer. Today Moore is suspended. Something doesn't add up for me. Whether Moore should or shouldn't have been suspended is immaterial in a way. It's the timing that's odd. ... The bottom line? It will be that much tougher tonight as the Cougars try to win their first Pac-10 road game of the season.
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• Before we get to basketball, I wanted to clear up something that's been on the Cougfan message boards. Burbank High defensive line coach Dave Lose, who coached commit T.J. Poloai in high school is coming to Washington State to work with the defensive line. As a student assistant. Not as the defensive line coach. Not as a grad assistant. But as a student assistant. I checked this out and that's the position he will fill. If you remember, last year Rudy Griffin came from Alabama and filled a similar role on offense. When Mike Kramer got the Idaho State job, he took Griffin with him. Student assistants break down film, help the coaches with non-field work and basically serve the equivalent of an internship. So everyone can calm down. ... Now back to tonight's game. With Arizona handling Arizona State easily in Tucson today, the Wildcats pull into a first-place tie with Washington as we write (the Huskies can either fall a half-game back or pull a half-game ahead tomorrow when they play Cal). Stanford, coming into tonight 3-1, has a chance to pull even with UA if it can do what every other Pac-10 team seems to be able to do, defeat WSU on its home floor. OK, that's not fair. Only 1/3 of them have been able to do that thus far. The Cardinal have yet to lose at home this season, with two of their losses coming in Anaheim at a tournament, at Butler, at Oklahoma State and at Arizona. Those last three places are not easy spots to play, so throw in Stanford's dismantling of Virginia here and Thursday night's upset of Washington, and you have decent resume. ... And the Cardinal have gotten even better since freshman Aaron Bright moved into the starting lineup. Since Jarrett Mann moved over to the off-guard spot (when a guy is making just 32.7 percent of his shots and has hit just one 3-pointer in 15 games, it's hard to label him a shooting guard), Stanford is 4-1, with the win over Washington and the lone loss at Arizona. ... Make no mistake about it, however, Jeremy Green makes the Cardinal go. It was Green last year – not Landry Fields – who rallied Stanford from an 18-point second-half deficit to defeat the Cougars. That game, and the loss at Cal two days later, triggered – or we're part of, depending on your point of view – WSU's late-season collapse last year as the Cougars lost seven of their final eight games. Green scored 18 of his 24 points in the second half of that game. If you watch this game on TV – oh, that's right, you can't – then watch how the Cougars guard Green. Either Marcus Capers or Klay Thompson will try, with the mandate not to give help. It's stay on Green and keep him from going off.
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• That's it for now. You know the drill. Follow us on Twitter during the game. We'll be back at the half. Until then ...
