Cougars Stand Tall In Pac-10 WSU Hands Stanford First Loss In Taking Early Conference Lead
By Stanford coach Mike Montgomery’s assessment, his team got what it deserved Saturday afternoon - a swift, sharp kick in the ego.
Not that the Cardinal appeared all that hung up on itself, its unbeaten record or its national ranking. But there certainly wasn’t much sense of urgency in the way the 23rd-ranked Cardinal approached Washington State.
As a result, the Cougars knocked Stanford from from the rapidly dwindling ranks of the nation’s unbeaten Division I men’s basketball teams, 77-63, in front of a Friel Court crowd of 4,810.
The win was WSU’s second in a row over a Top 25 team and kept the Cougars in a tie with Oregon for the Pacific-10 Conference lead at 2-0.
Stanford fell to 1-1 in the Pac-10 and 10-1 overall.
“We got what we deserved,” Montgomery said after watching WSU’s backcourt of Shamon Antrum, Isaac Fontaine and Donminic Ellison carve up his Cardinal. “We got outplayed and we certainly got outcoached. We just didn’t play as hard as they did and we didn’t play with as much poise as they did.
“They outhustled us, they shot extremely well and we were not able to put any pressure on them defensively. I didn’t see a lot of life out of anybody.”
Antrum, the Cougars’ shooting guard, scored 15 points in the first 8 minutes and finished with a game-high 19. Fontaine added 15 and Ellison, just as he did in Thursday night’s win over 17th-ranked California, stepped up his offensive production in the second half to score all 12 of his points. He also handed out nine assists and made two steals.
WSU outrebounded the bigger and more physical Cardinal 35-26 and survived 19 turnovers by shooting 59.6 percent (31 of 52) from the field.
Cougars coach Kevin Eastman said he came in wondering if his young team could put together “back-to-back good games.”
“Not just three out of four halves like we did in Texas (at the Sun Classic in El Paso),” he explained, “but four out of four good halves. And we did.”
The Cougars earned this upset in the same manner as Thursday’s, beating Stanford to nearly every loose ball and long rebound. They were at their blue-collar best during a 90-second stretch of the second half when they ran off nine consecutive points to build their lead from 48-40 to 57-40.
Ellison, who took only two shots and was held scoreless in the first half, fueled the run with a 3-pointer from the top of the key. Antrum added a basket on a twisting drive down the lane that left him on his back, and both freshman guard Chris Griffin and junior forward Mark Hendrickson scored in transition.
During that span, WSU rebounded every missed shot, pressured Stanford’s backcourt into poor decisions and beat the Cardinal to every ball they knocked loose.
“That spurt was all about loose balls, long rebounds and just kind of getting down, digging in and getting the job done,” Eastman pridefully explained. “And again, that’s just players doin’ it.
“Hey, I can bend down all I want, but that doesn’t help them (the players) do anything.”
From the bench, Eastman can’t do much for his players when they shoot the ball, either. But he has clearly pushed across his message about patience and good shot selection at some point during practice.
Antrum, who knocked down 5 of 7 shots - including four from 3-point range, credited that message for his early effectiveness.
“My teammates were just finding the open man and I was feeling it early in the game,” explained the junior transfer from Dixie (Utah) College, who used his lightning first step to abuse Stanford defenders most of the game. “They were good shots.”
Hendrickson, who finished with six points and six rebounds, spoke of WSU’s dominance on the boards.
“Normally, we full-front their post players on defense,” he said. “This game we just three-quarters fronted them and that really helped our rebounding. We were in better position, and that was a key for us.”
It helped WSU’s overall cause that Stanford point guard Brevin Knight was limited to 21 minutes by a lower-leg injury that requires him to wear a knee-high plastic cast.
Knight, the Pac-10’s Freshman of the Year last season, scored four points and was credited with only one assist.
Dion Cross and Tim Young, the Cardinal’s splendid 7-foot-1 freshman center, each finished with 15 points.
The Cougars, who had started 0-3 in the Pac-10 the past three seasons, travel to Los Angeles this week. They face Southern California on Thursday night and UCLA on Saturday afternoon.
Washington St. 77, Stanford 63 STANFORD (10-1)
Poppink 4-9 3-4 11, Young 6-11 3-3 15, Cross 5-14 2-3 15, Knight 2-5 0-0 4, Harbour 1-6 2-3 4, Gravely 0-2 0-0 0, Jackson 1-5 0-0 2, Allaway 1-1 1-2 3, Tshionyi 0-0 0-0 0, Manley 1-1 0-0 2, Lammersen 2-4 3-4 7. Totals 23-58 14-19 63.
WASHINGTON STATE (6-3)
Hendrickson 3-5 0-0 6, Fontaine 5-11 2-2 15, Daniel 3-3 0-0 6, Ellison 5-10 0-0 12, Antrum 6-8 3-5 19, Griffin 2-3 0-0 4, Corkrum 2-3 1-2 5, Vik 2-6 0-0 4, Mack 3-3 0-0 6. Totals 31-52 6-9 77.
Halftime-Washington St. 42, Stanford 35. 3-Point goals- Stanford 3-15 (Cross 3-6, Knight 0-1, Harbour 0-1, Gravely 0-1, Poppink 0-3, Jackson 0-3), Washington St. 9-15 (Antrum 4-4, Fontaine 3-5, Ellison 2-2, Vik 0-4). Fouled out-None. Rebounds-Stanford 26 (Young 5), Washington St. 35 (Hendrickson 6). Assists-Stanford 8 (Harbour 3), Washington St. 22 (Ellison 9). Total fouls-Stanford 14, Washington St 19. Technical-Jackson. A-4,810.