Aimless WSU falls again

PULLMAN – What looked so good just two weeks ago has now gone terribly wrong.

The high of winning at Washington has been fully erased, as Washington State dropped a fourth consecutive game Saturday.

This one was to Oregon State, but at this point – one game shy of the halfway point in Pacific-10 Conference basketball play – the opponent on the other bench isn’t nearly as troubling for WSU as the ones on its own.

At UCLA, it was a first-half slump. At USC, it was shoddy defense. Against Oregon, it was a late collapse. And this time, it was a lackluster effort from beginning to end, marked by the disappearance of the perimeter game that had been the Cougars trademark of late.

The final score was 59-50 in favor of the visiting Beavers (10-8, 3-4), but the score had been tied at 48 with 3 1/2 minutes to play. Oregon State managed to inch ahead thereafter, and when WSU (9-7, 2-5) continued to misfire from the outside, the outcome was sealed.

“We did not deserve this game. We played miserable basketball in the first half,” WSU head coach Dick Bennett said. “When the heat was on, again we lost our composure, took some very bad shots.”

Josh Akognon, WSU’s leading scorer in the four previous games, went 1 of 8 from 3-point range and 3 of 14 overall. Akognon’s one 3-pointer was also the team’s one make, coupled with 15 misses.

Akognon ended up with more rebounds (eight) than points (seven).

“They’re the leading 3-point shooting team in the Pac-10 in conference play, so this is an aberration,” OSU coach Jay John said. “We didn’t want to switch. We wanted to keep ball pressure. And we just wanted to chase cutters and make it as hard as possible.”

OSU’s primary outside threat, Chris Stephens, had the night that Akognon had expected to enjoy, hitting all four of his 3-pointers and scoring a game-high 23 points. The Beavers came in having won just two of their last 26 Pac-10 road games.

One might have expected the Cougars to come out with a sense of desperation, given the three-game losing streak they had been saddled with after the loss on Thursday. But instead, they held just two leads – 4-2 and 45-44.

“Obviously, we have no leader on the floor. That is obvious if you watch us,” Bennett said. “I don’t think they trust me. My feeling is that most of them think I’m over the hill. Maybe I’m just exaggerating.”

The Cougars are playing without the closest thing they have to that leader in point guard Derrick Low, who missed his fifth game with a broken foot. OSU was also without its point guard, Lamar Hurd, who was injured last week.

But while OSU managed to bridge the hole in its lineup with sophomore Wesley Washington, WSU struggled again without Low, the glue in its lineup.

“The loss of Derrick has impacted us far more than I thought it would,” Bennett said. “I don’t mind when we’re beaten. I don’t mind that. I just hate to see us come apart at the seams, and that was pretty much the first half.”

The Cougars came into the week thinking a sweep was possible to get back to better than .500 in the conference. Instead, they find themselves alone in ninth place and heading back on the road for the third time in four weeks, this time to Stanford and California.

As Bennett knows, his young players have work to do. What did he say to them after the game?

“A lot,” Bennett said.