Glenn Kasses

PULLMAN – Down by seven points and down for the entire game to that point, Washington State turned to the least likely guy on the court to bail the team out. And bail it out he did. Aron Baynes, whose scoring average this season is ninth-best on the Cougars roster, used his 280 pounds to the fullest, scoring nine consecutive points over a 2-minute, 26-second span to give WSU its first lead. And if that wasn't enough, the sophomore knocked down four straight free throws in the closing possessions, first to give WSU a lead and then to seal a 58-54 road win at Oregon State on Saturday.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The sight was so surprising it was almost laughable. Here was the No. 9 team in the country, lined up across the Gill Coliseum floor, working on defensive slides and stances as assistant coach Ben Johnson held a ball in the direction he wanted the players to move.

EUGENE, Ore. – Washington State can set a school record for wins this season. It can finish near the top of the Pac-10 standings for the first time in more than a decade. It could even make a run deep into the NCAA tournament. But the Cougars still can't beat Oregon.

Washington State is rested. It can only hope that it's ready. The 22-4 Cougars, having been off since a Feb. 14 win at Washington, probably will have to call on every reserve of newfound strength to slay the one dragon that has haunted them above all others in recent seasons.

PULLMAN – Belief is something that's getting easier and easier to come by these days around the Washington State basketball program. But for one player on this record-setting team, that quality was needed – both internally and externally – long before the wins started piling up.

PULLMAN – All the hands went into the center and in unison the voices called out "Pac-10 champs!" as Washington State's basketball team closed its practice Monday. It's the story that no one – not a player, not a coach and certainly not a pundit – saw coming, but here it is. The Cougars, at 22-4 and 11-3 in the Pac-10, are just four games away from ruling a league that many assumed would rule over them for yet another season.

Tony Bennett is considered a favorite to win national coach of the year honors for his work as a first-year coach in turning the Cougars into the 22-4 team that they are. But for all the in-game adjustments and the personnel decisions, his best move may have come in the off-season.

SEATTLE – A full half-hour after the end of Wednesday night's basketball game between Washington State and Washington, nearly half of the Cougars coaches and players milled about on the floor of Bank of America Arena. There, they chatted casually with fans, friends and family as if nothing had taken place in that same space.

Had this been said two years ago, it most certainly would have been as a punch line to a bizarre basketball joke. But a lot can happen in two years, and a lot has happened. No. 10 Washington State travels to an unranked Washington team for a 7 p.m. game in Edmundson Pavilion today. The Cougars will be looking for their fourth consecutive win over the Huskies.

PULLMAN – Teams have tried to run on Washington State, only to slam into a brick wall. On Saturday, California walked onto Friel Court before 8,762 fans and tried to be the brick wall. That wasn't going to work, either.

PULLMAN – The phone rang at Dick Bennett's house on Sunday and the retired basketball coach's 9-year-old grandson had a question. "Only from the mouth of babes," Bennett recalled. "He says, 'Grandpa, aren't you embarrassed?' He said, 'Your son is much younger than you and he's a much better coach than you.' "

PULLMAN – It's not hard to find something to be concerned about if you're a Washington State fan tonight. While the Cougars are 19-4 and playing as well as they have in decades, tonight's rematch against Stanford poses some obvious difficulties.

PULLMAN – Washington State gained 24 players on Wednesday and lost one coach. Shortly after head coach Bill Doba spent nearly an hour discussing his latest haul of recruits, the Oakland Raiders announced that WSU running backs coach and special teams coordinator Kelly Skipper would become its assistant offensive line coach.

PULLMAN – When Dennis Erickson stepped onto a private plane headed from Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport to Arizona, few could have guessed that the coach's decision to ditch his Idaho coaching job for the same position at Arizona State would have affected Washington State all that much. Now that national letter of intent day has arrived, though, the classes announced by both Erickson in Tempe and WSU head coach Bill Doba in Pullman will look different than they might have had the job shuffle never taken place.

TEMPE, Ariz. – Somehow, what transpired Saturday evening in Wells Fargo Arena counts just as much as each of Washington State's other seven Pac-10 basketball wins, including the road victory against Arizona two days earlier. It just didn't seem like it should.