WSU earns spot in Pac-10 tourney

STANFORD, Calif. — Dick Bennett leaned back against the wall in a cleared-out coaches locker room and managed, if only for a moment, to relax.

All year — all his coaching career, for that matter — Bennett has preached the importance of playing good defense first. On Thursday, his team clearly got the message.

Washington State allowed just 12 points to Stanford in the first half before it held the Cardinal to 29.3 percent shooting for the game. It bottled up point guard extraordinaire Chris Hernandez in a 3-of-16 shooting effort. And, most important, it fought its way to a 59-48 win and a Pac-10 tournament berth.

The Cougars (12-14, 7-10 Pac-10) entered this week knowing they almost certainly needed at least one of two at Stanford and California to make the conference tournament, and Thursday they played for the most part as if there would be no second chance on Saturday.

“Sensational defense,” senior shooting guard Thomas Kelati said. “This team has come together so well defensively. Our offense tends to struggle; I don’t really know why or have an answer for our struggles. But defensively I know that we can compete with any team in the country.”

That defense was the reason WSU was able to take a four-point lead at halftime despite scoring just 16 of its own. And when the Cougars opened the second half on a 9-0 run to take a 25-12 lead, Stanford was forced into desperation mode for the rest of the game.

Hernandez was the most frustrated of any on the floor, completely unable to get into an offensive rhythm. When he finally did sink a 3-pointer midway through the second half — his second field goal of the night — the junior flung both arms in the air and whispered a word of thanks with his head tilted back. It was a look that Bennett had seen before.

“They just were not shooting the ball well. When that ball is not falling, it’s just a horrible feeling,” he said. “I mean, we had that happen to us in the first half. We were not making anything and thankfully they weren’t either.

“They played great defense in the first half too, so it was just a matter of who could make some shots.”

And as well as WSU played in the first half on defense, the team’s second half on offense may have been just as gratifying. The Cougars hit on 14 of their 17 shots (82.4 percent) after halftime, keeping Stanford (16-11, 10-7) at bay even as it tried to mount runs to get back into the game.

“We got better looks, good looks near the basket,” said Kelati, who scored 14. “A lot in the lane, a lot of back-door cuts.”

Freshman Robbie Cowgill, who was just cleared in a harassment case on campus the day before, scored a team-high 15 points and was a key around the basket on both ends for WSU. Matt Haryasz scored a game-high 17 points for Stanford.

But even while hitting everything in sight on offense, the Cougars still won the game on the defensive end in the second half. As if to finish off his team’s masterpiece, Bennett went to a 1-3-1 zone with 4:15 left in the game, confusing the Cardinal just enough to prevent it from stringing together a late comeback even as WSU struggled to make some free throws. It was just the second time all season the Cougars have played a zone defense.

WSU didn’t actually qualify for the conference tournament with the win until Washington – of all teams – defeated Cal minutes later, guaranteeing the Cougars a place in the top eight of the conference.

In fact, a win in Berkeley on Saturday and an Arizona win over Arizona State would give WSU the fifth seed.

But regardless of what help they may have received, the Cougars exited that locker room feeling as if they had earned their spot in the Staples Center next week.

“That’s the best news all night,” Kelati said. “We didn’t want it to come down to other teams. We didn’t want to rely on other teams. So we knew this was a do-or-die situation coming into this game. It meant a lot to us.”

Notes

Stanford scored two points in a 10-minute, 15-second span, with scoreless streaks of seven minutes and then 3:15 surrounding a Haryasz layup. Stanford also didn’t tally a point in the final 5:52 of the first half. … The Cougars are 16-0 under Bennett when outrebounding the opposition. They edged out Stanford on the boards 39-37. Jeff Varem alone had 14 rebounds, as well as seven assists. … This is WSU’s first season sweep of Stanford in 13 years, and its first win at Maples Pavilion in nine years.