Cougars Lose 12Th Straight, 30Th In A Row To Wildcats

Things finally changed at Washington State University.

No, the Cougars didn’t win.

But for the first time in four home games, the Cougars didn’t lose in overtime. Not by a long shot. When the final whistle blew and the spectators wiped the sleep from their eyes, the Cougars had lost, 73-50 to Arizona on Saturday at Friel Court. The No. 7 Wildcats improved to 21-4, 10-1. The Cougars (5-15, 0-11) didn’t improve at all. In fact, the 23-point loss was their worst at home since WSU lost to Arizona by 24 in 1990.

Remember the 1990 season? That year WSU went 1-17 in the Pac-10. This year, the Cougars could be headed to 0-18. That would be the worst record in Pac-10 history. (USC was the last winless conference team. The Trojans went 0-14 in the Pac-8 in 1976).

In the landslide of losses incurred by the Cougars this year, count Saturday’s among the most lethargic.

“We came out flat,” said WSU guard Mike Bush. `

And they stayed flat. On offense, the Cougars opted to stand beyond the arc and play pitch and catch with each other. Meanwhile, the shot clock was ticking away and taking any chance of a score with it. This offensive ineptness led to hurried shots, misses at the buzzer and an icy 34 percent shooting day from the field.

“One person would get the ball and hold it a little while and then another person would get it and hold it,” said Bush. “We didn’t move, we didn’t set good, hard screens. We were just standing around.”

Now while a lot of this lack-of-motion offense had to do with WSU, Arizona is due some credit.

The Wildcats switched from a man-to-man defense to a box-and-one to a 2-3 zone on alternating possessions throughout the game. This scheme sent the Cougars into a spiral of confusion they were not able to pull out of.

“A lot of times, we didn’t know what they were in,” said WSU senior Chris Crosby. “We didn’t do a good job of attacking them early. And that just allowed them to overplay guys like Jan (Michael Thomas) and me and really put a lot of pressure on us. Then they got Woods standing under the basket blocking everything.”

“They were changing their defense and basically what we have done in the past is try and get in a rhythm,” WSU coach Paul Graham said. “They took us out of that.” Arizona also took 3-point shooter Thomas out of the game completely. For the first time in his Washington State career, the senior scored no points on 0-of-10 shooting. “We knew we wanted to attack them with our defense because they were going to try a slow-down game,” said Arizona forward Luke Walton. “We were able to do that, shut down their shooters and play solid team defense.”

The Cougars’ defense, on the other hand, proved to be about as solid as Kleenex. The Wildcats shot 61 percent for the game.

Freshman guard Gilbert Arenas led the way with 24 points on 11-of-14 shooting. Power forward Michael Wright added 19 on 8 of 12. And 7-foot-1 Loren Woods had 10 on 5 of 7 from the floor.

“They went to their strong points which was inside,” said Crosby, who had a team-high 14 points. “They made a lot of easy baskets and it made it an uphill battle.”

Foul-prone WSU forward Eddie Miller made it more of an uphill battle when he picked up two quick fouls at the start of each half. “Eddie, he picks up those fouls and what that does is take him out of the game mentally,” said Graham.

It also took him out physically, therefore squashing any hope WSU had of scoring from inside 10 feet. In fact, in the second half the ball went to the low post less than half-a-dozen times.

“You got to have a balanced attack,” said Crosby. “You have got to be able to score inside. We didn’t do a good job of that.”

“You have got to find something down low,” added Graham.

Now the Cougars have got to find out if anything is left in their tank for the last seven games of the season.

“Our problem is not our opponent, it’s ourselves,” said Graham. “Our team is kind of mentally drained. But I told them we have got another month to play.” The Cougars start that month by traveling to Oregon for a game Thursday night.

Arizona 73, Washington St. 50

Arizona (21-4) - Walton 2-7 0-0 5, Wright 8-12 3-4 19, Woods 5-7 0-0 10, Arenas 11-14 0-0 24, Gardner 2-4 2-2 7, Pastner 0-1 0-0 0, Harris 0-0 0-0 0, Wessel 2-2 0-0 4, Anderson 1-4 2-2 4, Hansen 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 31-51 7-8 73.

Washington St. (5-15) - Crosby 5-14 0-0 14, Miller 4-9 0-0 8, Thomas 0-10 0-0 0, Bush 4-11 1-1 9, Adams 4-9 0-0 10, Clark 1-3 0-0 2, Mencke 0-0 0-0 0, Riley 0-0 0-0 0, Evans 2-4 1-2 5, Whitehead 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 21-61 2-3 50.

Halftime-Arizona 39, Washington St. 19. 3-Point goals- Arizona 4-11 (Arenas 2-2, Gardner 1-3, Walton 1-4, Pastner 0-1, Anderson 0-1), Washington St. 6-22 (Crosby 4-9, Adams 2-5, Miller 0-1, Bush 0-1, Thomas 0-6). Fouled out-None. Rebounds-Arizona 32 (Wright 8), Washington St. 29 (Bush 9). Assists-Arizona 14 (Walton 7), Washington St. 10 (Clark 3). Total fouls-Arizona 6, Washington St. 14. A-5,208.