Familiar Theme As Slow-Starting Cougs Fall Again Beavers 64 Cougars 56

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Washington State gets down big in the first half, makes a run late, has a chance to win and blows it down the stretch.

Sound familiar? Well, it happened again Saturday.

The Cougars, searching for their first Pac-10 road win since 1998, crawled within three points of Oregon State in the second half before losing 64-56 at Gill Coliseum. The loss was the Cougars’ 13th straight in Pac-10 play this year. That ties the 1974-75 Cougars for the worst start ever in conference play.

Washington State is now 5-17 and 0-13. Oregon State (12-12, 4-7) improved to .500 on the season.

This game was also the 17th straight conference loss over the past two seasons and their 22nd straight conference road loss.

In fact, the last time Washington State won on the road in the Pac-10 was against the Beavers in Gill in 1998. The last time WSU wasn’t blown out away from Pullman was back in the first week of January. Since playing Arizona to a five-point game, Washington State has lost four road games by an average of 21 points.

But late in the second half in this one it looked as if the Cougar curse would be broken.

Washington State cut the Oregon State lead to three, 42-39, when Mike Bush got the ball off a steal and scored two of his career-high 26 points.

But the zone that had slowed Oregon State down all game broke down. Beavers point guard Deaundra Tanner penetrated and got a three-point play. That pushed the lead to six. Oregon State free throws and timely jumps shots allowed the Beavers to maintain that lead throughout the final minutes.

“We just made some bad decisions on offense and turned the ball over then,” said Bush. “And they made some tough shots. The defense was there, they just made some shots.”

Of course, the Cougars’ comeback efforts were not helped by the poor play of Eddie Miller and Jan-Michael Thomas.

Miller fouled out after going 1 of 6 from the field. Thomas continued his slump. The senior, who broke the WSU single-season record for 3-pointers last season, only had three points. So in his last three games, the one-time WSU leading scorer has averaged three points.

“The clock is ticking on him right now because he is a senior and he is kind of in a fog,” said WSU coach Paul Graham. “He needs to dig in, keep aggressive and keep moving on offense.”

The Cougars also lost Tyrone Evans to a knee injury with 5:26 left. Even with the short bench, Bush and Chris Crosby were able to keep the game mildly interesting. Bush took over with drives and circus shots.

“He was just tremendous,” said Graham. “I’ve been around a lot of guys at SMU, New Mexico and Oklahoma State and I’ve never been around a guy that plays as hard as Mike Bush.

“He’s out there being aggressive, going after everything, never complaining; just a warrior. That’s the way this whole team needs to be.”

After a miserable 0 of 6 first half, Crosby got going with midrange jumpers to finish with 15 points. But it was the first half that doomed the Cougars once again.

Washington State scored 16 points. That matches the season-low 16 the Cougars scored at Stanford. And for the seventh straight game, WSU shot worse than 40 percent in the first half.

This time the Cougars shot 23 percent.

“We weren’t moving on offense,” said Bush. “They were switching on defense and we didn’t see the backdoors and couldn’t make the plays.”

“Our defense was good,” added Graham. “We just couldn’t get the shots to fall.”

Oregon St. 64, Washington St. 56

Washington State (5-17) - Crosby 5-13 4-6 15, Miller 1-6 0-0 2, Thomas 1-5 0-0 3, Bush 10-19 6-10 26, Adams 1-6 0-0 3, Clark 0-1 1-2 1, Mencke 0-1 0-0 0, Riley 0-0 0-2 0, Evans 2-4 2-4 6, Whitehead 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 20-56 13-24 56.

Oregon State (12-12) - Jackson 1-5 5-8 7, Petraitis 1-1 1-2 3, Heide 4-10 6-8 14, Tanner 3-9 4-5 11, Lake 0-3 3-4 3, Haywood 0-1 2-2 2, Jones 2-3 0-1 6, Steinthal 5-9 4-4 18. Totals 17-43 25-34 64.

Halftime-Oregon St. 23, Washington St. 16. 3-Point goals-Washington St. 3-17 (Adams 1-2, Thomas 1-4, Crosby 1-7, Clark 0-1, Mencke 0-1, Bush 0-2), Oregon St. 5-16 (Steinthal 4-7, Tanner 1-5, Jackson 0-2, Lake 0-2) Fouled out- Washington St. (Crosby, Miller), Oregon State (Jones). Rebounds-Washington St. 31 (Bush 6, Crosby 6), Oregon St. 40 (Heide 8). Assists-Washington State 9 (Bush 3), Oregon State 13 (Tanner 8). Total fouls-Washington State 21, Oregon State 19. Technicals-Washington State bench. A-6,224.