Cougs draw crowd, but UW is show
PULLMAN — The Cougars had their biggest crowd at Friel Court on Saturday for men’s basketball since a game against Oregon State more than nine years ago. In theory, that alone should have set a tone much different than the one in Seattle when they lost to the Huskies by 18 earlier this year.
Instead, the rematch looked almost exactly like the first edition of the 2005 intrastate matchup. Just as it did on its home court, Washington jumped out to a big lead – thanks to a run in the middle of the first half – and never looked back, pressuring and pushing Washington State into one mistake after another to win 68-55.
“The setting was just right and the only ones who really rose to the occasion were the guys in purple,” WSU head coach Dick Bennett said. “They played an active, efficient game and we were just simply no match from start to finish. We needed to get off to a good start and that just didn’t happen.”
The Cougars (10-13, 5-9 Pac-10) never led and were behind for the rest of the game once Washington took an 11-9 lead just after the first media timeout. And if WSU hadn’t scored the game’s last 13 points in garbage time, the Huskies (21-4, 11-3) would have had the rout in the final box score that they earned on the court.
Instead of the upset that most of the 8,633 attendees were hoping for, they witnessed the Cougars turn the ball over a season-high 22 times — 12 by the team’s two top players, seniors Jeff Varem and Thomas Kelati. The other three starters, Derrick Low, Robbie Cowgill and Chris Schlatter, had five turnovers but just six points combined.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys that try to do things,” said freshman Kyle Weaver, the Cougars’ leading scorer with 15 points off the bench in 30 minutes. “Sometimes we try to force or we do things that we’re not used to doing. Sometimes we can’t get them going. It’s a bit of a struggle but that’s just something we’ve got to keep playing with. When those guys aren’t on, we’ve got to be able to step up.”
Tre Simmons led all scorers with 16 points for the Huskies, but 11 of them came on four consecutive possessions with the game already out of reach. Not needing to rely on any one scorer, Washington used the 25 points it earned off of turnovers and 20 assists — nine from Will Conroy alone — to choke the Cougars as a team.
“We were really aggressive, forcing 22 turnovers while committing only 12 fouls,” said Washington coach Lorenzo Romar, whose team had lost in perhaps its worst outing of the season at Oregon State six days earlier. “Whenever we lost I felt like guys have rallied together and done whatever they could to make sure we didn’t lose back-to-back games.
“I think that’s what we saw today.”
Few, if any, were banking on a Cougar victory over Washington, but the loss — as well as some help around the conference on Saturday — leaves the Cougars in the exact same place they were before taking the floor in the race for the Pac-10 tournament.
The top eight teams get in, and currently WSU is tied with California for the last two spots with Oregon one game back. But with the Cougars now on a three-game losing streak and facing the prospect of playing a first-place Arizona team next that will be angling for revenge after losing to WSU in January, Bennett has concerns much greater than the conference standings.
“There are teams that will keep you around because they don’t come after you,” Bennett said, reflecting on the most recent loss. “The real measuring stick is when they come after you. Can you handle it?
“I’m considering us a long shot to get in because our kids … I don’t know, we have not had the kind of energy and focus come game time that it takes to be a tournament team. Sometimes you have to hit the bottom and then bounce once or twice before you wake up. If that’s the best we can do for these young kids, we’ll have to live with that.”