Cougars hit road for home game at Arena
Washington State University opens up its Pacific-10 Conference season at 5 p.m. today against defending conference champion Stanford at home. Sort of.
While the Cougars are officially beginning the conference slate with two home games, they can’t treat them as such with both being played in Spokane Arena, the second coming against California on Sunday.
“You have to treat it like a road game, meaning your schedule has to be like it is on the road, with bed checks, if you will,” WSU coach Dick Bennett said. “Your pregame meal and practices are similar to a road trip. You hope it’s a friendly atmosphere, but it’s one you’re not familiar with.”
Last season, WSU also played two home games in Spokane but didn’t get a chance to hold a full practice on its own adopted court. This year, the team made the trip a day early and practiced on Thursday to get more familiar with its surroundings.
Still, the Cougars will spend three nights away from home, just the same as any other Pac-10 road trip like the one they’ll take next week to Los Angeles.
“We’ve got a lot of fans there and it’s a great chance to play in front of them,” senior Jeff Varem said after a practice in Pullman earlier this week. “I’m always happy to go away from home for a chance to play in front of them in a bigger city.”
While being outside of Pullman is nothing new – WSU’s last home game was on Dec. 7 – Bennett is hoping that the conference season brings something different to the table, as in scoring more points.
The Cougars average barely 49 a game and have hit fewer than half as many free throws as any other team in the conference thus far. While it’s no surprise that WSU is last in the league in scoring, given Bennett’s defense-first approach, it’s almost certain to be an issue if the team doesn’t improve.
“We just haven’t generated enough offense to do well in a conference like ours,” Bennett said. “You just can not expect a team to hold people under 50 points. So rather than saying, ‘Well, this is what I expect,’ I say, ‘Let’s just work at it, see what happens, then move on from there.’ We have hopes, but those aren’t the same as expectations.”
Extra practice sessions this week have been devoted to offense, but the Cougars’ style of play could be an asset even without improved offense in the short term, especially against Pac-10 teams that aren’t used to a slow-down game.
“We’re a defensive team. Right now we’re just really trying to find an offense that’s really going to help,” Varem said. “I think the boys are ready, that’s all I have to say. … We don’t care who we play. Let’s just play.”