Shots bounce away for Cougs
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The movement was fluid, the screens were solid and the shots were there.
They just wouldn’t go down for Washington State.
Running what basketball coach Dick Bennett called their best offense all year, the Cougars lost 71-62 to Oregon State as they watched a number of those good shots bounce away at the most inopportune times.
“It was kind of like somebody put a lid on the hoop toward the end,” WSU senior guard Randy Green said after the Pacific-10 Conference game. “We hit a wall there, let some things happen and it turned out for the worst.”
The Cougars rallied from their usual first-half slump with a 16-5 run to open the second half, good for a five-point lead. But thereafter, OSU (11-14, 4-10) managed to hit almost every shot in clutch situations while WSU (11-11, 4-9) did the opposite.
“It came down to that,” Bennett said. “We couldn’t make any shots down the stretch that we had, and we had our best shooters shooting them.”
Most notably, Josh Akognon went 2 of 12 from the floor and 0 of 5 from beyond the arc despite getting a number of good looks. Akognon, the team’s top scorer overall and top 3-point threat, had a look with a minute to go without a defender inside of 10 feet, but it, too, clanged off the rim to leave OSU’s five-point lead untouched.
“I didn’t think he was going to miss,” OSU coach Jay John said. “I was already thinking it’s a two-point game.”
WSU point guard Derrick Low, getting a second start since returning from a broken foot, had a team-high 13 points on a career-high 15 attempts. WSU had 11 assists and just four turnovers, a season low.
The Cougars could have taken a big step toward NIT eligibility with a road win over the staggering Beavers, who had lost six straight since winning in Pullman last month. But instead, Oregon State finished off the season sweep and pushed WSU back to .500, meaning the Cougars will likely need three wins in the final five regular-season games to have any chance at postseason play.
WSU hasn’t won a game on the Pac-10 swing through Oregon since 1998, and it’ll have just one more chance to change that this season with Saturday’s game against Oregon.
The Beavers did just enough to keep that streak alive. Sasa Cuic scored a game-high 23 points and OSU hit on 52 percent of its shots from the floor in the second half.
“It’s not real complicated,” Bennett said. “We had some breakdowns – you can point to those. We had our usual poor start – you can point to that. But we caught up in plenty of time and it was even. And we started missing.”
Notes
WSU has not led a game at halftime since Jan. 14 at USC. It trailed 31-25 at the break Thursday night. … The Cougars shot 3 of 30 from 3-point range in the two games against Oregon State this year. … Sophomore center Chris Henry had what might have been the best half of his career, scoring 10 points with four rebounds in 17 second-half minutes. … Gill Coliseum welcomed 4,956 fans, its lowest total this conference season.