Cougars short on defensive end
Giving up 60 points has been the death knell for Washington State basketball teams under Dick Bennett, which had gone 3-21 when failing to better that defensive mark.
So allowing 76 Tuesday night in the Spokane Arena to BYU? Well, that pretty much meant that WSU had no chance.
The home Cougars (1-1) lost to the visiting Cougars (1-1) 76-68 before 3,138 people, giving Bennett plenty of reasons to be worried that his team’s normally superb defense is nowhere near where he’d like it to be.
“We have not developed a defensive mentality,” Bennett said. “That is a hard thing to replace if you don’t have it and we needed stops.”
Even worse for the Cougars, injuries continue to be a problem that could affect the team for the entire season. Forward Daven Harmeling injured his shoulder in the season opener Saturday night and Bennett said surgery will probably be necessary, a step that would end the sophomore’s season.
Harmeling is seeing a doctor after the Cougars’ next game on Saturday against Idaho and from there he could be headed for the operating table.
“I’m looking over there on the bench and three of our top seven kids aren’t in uniform,” Bennett said of Harmeling, starting center Robbie Cowgill (collar bone, out at least two more weeks) and junior college transfer Rodney Edgerson (back, return date unknown). “With the limited experience we have and the injuries we’ve sustained, everything has to go well. And it didn’t.”
WSU fell behind quickly after the opening tip, and it never held a lead the entire game. The Cougar guards struggled to get open looks all night and Josh Akognon, who scored 22 in the first game, had just five against BYU.
The bright spot for WSU was another junior college transfer, forward Ivory Clark, whose athleticism befuddled BYU. Clark scored 23 points and added five rebounds in his second major-college game, clearly serving as WSU’s go-to player down the stretch as it tried to mount a comeback.
“They gave me some open shots and some lanes to the basket and I took them,” said Clark, whose offensive prowess Tuesday night wasn’t enough to save WSU from its own poor defense. “We always cut it down to five or four or three and then gave up the big play. That really hurt us down the stretch.”
This was also the first game under Bennett where the Cougars had a rebounding edge (23-22) but still lost. WSU had been 17-0 under Bennett when topping its opponent on the glass.
Once again, the problem seemed to boil down to WSU’s inability to stop BYU when it counted.
“They definitely did a good job in hitting those big shots,” said point guard Derrick Low, the only other WSU player in double figures with 13 points. “Any team that doesn’t come out ready to play doesn’t deserve to win. … We’re not the type of team that can give up too much of that stuff.”
For BYU, four players ended up in double figures, led by Brock Reichner’s 18 and Fernando Malaman’s 14. Reichner, who is also head coach Dave Rose’s son-in-law, played just seven minutes in a season-opening loss to Loyola Marymount but started and played 30 against WSU.
BYU was also aided by the crowd, which was clearly split between home and visiting fans.
For WSU, which was playing its first of two home games in Spokane this season, it is clear that much is still left to learn. The Cougars experimented with nine different players who all had at least six minutes. Freshman Chris Matthews didn’t play at all in the first half but entered in a key second-half situation. Bennett also used a four-guard lineup for a significant chunk of the closing minutes.
“Somehow we’ve got to find a combination that can go out and play,” Bennett said. “We kind of lost the offense we were going to run when we lost Daven. We’re limited inside with what we’re going to do.”
Notes
Former football walk-on John Rasmussen, a 6-foot-5 wide receiver, has joined the Cougar basketball team in a similar capacity. … Bennett said freshman Caleb Forrest, previously a redshirt candidate, could play this season if Harmeling is lost for the year.