Odds are WSU is just that good

SEATTLE – So it is no longer surprising. Only incredible.

At least in some circles. Those smart guys in Vegas, for instance, installed Washington State as three-point underdogs Wednesday night against Washington, and even if it was only to ire up all the Cougars with money burning a hole in their pockets, it did have that slap-of-disrespect feeling to it.

This is 10th-ranked Wazzu, after all, the highest branch the Cougars have used for a perch. And the Huskies, meanwhile, reside in seventh place in the Pac-10, had already lost three in a row to the Cougs and are maybe a couple of more body blows from printing NIT tickets.

But then, everything has a slap-of-disrespect feel to a Coug, right?

“We tell people this and they don’t believe it,” said WSU forward Robbie Cowgill, “but we feel like we’re the underdogs going into every game, and that’s the way we play and the reason we’re successful.”

OK, so another theory stood on its head.

Sound basketball and a terrific story – yeah, those are the Cougars of 2007, a story that got even better Wednesday night in a 65-61 thriller over the Huskies, Wazzu’s fourth straight in this series. When do you suppose the Huskies might get around to making this a rivalry again?

But they are also a tribute to contrarianism, conclusions and outcomes that don’t seem to make sense when stacked up against the evidence.

For example, you can point to any number of reasons why the Cougars ran their record to 22-4 here at Hec Ed – the not-quite-out-of-nowhere 16 points off the bench from guard Taylor Rochestie, the 61 percent shooting in the first half, the recurring case of the dumbs that has infected much of UW’s conference season.

But you wouldn’t think that it was because the Cougars choked off the Huskies’ inside game – not after a look at the scoresheet that showed the two biggest Dawgs, 7-foot Spencer Hawes and brawny Jon Brockman, with 37 points and 19 rebounds between them, and the Cougars with a 10-rebound deficit on the night.

Even WSU coach Tony Bennett wouldn’t have suggested it.

“Hey, you can tell I’m a young coach – it’s all a blur,” he laughed. “I felt like they were getting in there every time and we were dead.”

But the fact is, once the Cougars reclaimed the lead with about 5 minutes to play – after surrendering it for all of about 20 seconds – Hawes and Brockman were rendered irrelevant, if not invisible. In those last five minutes, the Huskies took eight shots and made one – and exactly none of them came from the hands of their go-to giants.

Indeed, five of them were put up by UW point guard Justin Dentmon, who was a spiffy 2 of 12 from the field and, well, just how the hell does that happen?

Well, probably not without some cooperation on the Huskies’ part, but mostly it was the persuasion of Wazzu’s brand of defense, which of course is not so much scheme as it is determination and will.

“You have to fight them so they don’t get deep, deep position,” said Bennett. “And we trap the post a lot, which we’ve done all year. And every now and then, we let a guy go 1-on-1 against them and hope they miss or we get a block.”

Hey, who says hope can’t be a strategy?

It seemed at times as if that’s what the Cougars were counting on when they matched 6-foot-6 Ivory Clark on Hawes in the post. Except that it took three trips down the floor before Hawes could score the go-ahead basket, and when he did he had to push Clark to the floor to get it done.

Later, it was Cowgill engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and that was almost as silly a sight.

“When I guarded him, I tried to push him off the block a little bit,” Cowgill said. “It’s funny to hear myself say that. But I tried to get him out of where he could just catch and turn and shoot that hook, because he can do that over double teams. I just tried to get him out of there to where the double team actually helps.”

Ineffectiveness inside, of course, is often attributable to problems outside, and the Huskies have developed big issues at guard – particularly in the play of Dentmon, whose play and decision making have regressed dramatically this season.

But it’s also far enough along in the season to conclude that Wazzu’s supposed deficiencies inside – too small, too slender, whatever – have been overstated a bit. A week ago, it was the Lopez twins of Stanford who were non-factors, and while Hawes and Brockman very much kept Washington in this game, they didn’t step up and win it, either.

Clark and Cowgill did – not with big shots like Daven Harmeling and Derrick Low made, but by not allowing those big shots.

“This is a game we probably would have lost last year and the year before,” Cowgill allowed, “from not being able to finish at the end. Not that we made real great decisions at the end, but we did enough defensively.

“It’s a little surreal to think, ‘Are we really doing this? Are we really this caliber of a team?’ ‘

The odds are against it. But what do oddsmakers know?