Cougs clean clocks
PULLMAN – Some nights it just looks easy, but it’s been a long time since things looked this simple for Washington State.
The Cougars showed no signs of slacking off against a weaker Arizona State team and in the process picked up their biggest Pac-10 basketball win in nearly three years, by a 75-55 final.
WSU hit 7 of 8 shots to start the game and opened the second half on a 24-8 run to make up for some lackluster first-half defense that kept the game close. But by the final 10 minutes, WSU had extended its lead well into double digits and the rout was on.
“We were clearly outplayed,” Arizona State coach Herb Sendek said. “I just think the 15-round fight, if you will, continued. We just kept taking blows.”
Both WSU (13-2, 2-1) and Arizona State (6-8, 0-3) matched each other almost bucket for bucket in the first half, with the Sun Devils shooting better than 61 percent from the floor and WSU more than 53 percent to take a 37-33 lead.
But a nice defensive adjustment by the Cougars – forward Ivory Clark took responsibility for guard Christian Polk, who had 13 first-half points – helped slow down Sendek’s offense, and it paved the way for yet another Cougars second-half run.
“We usually come out and get stops and that’s the big thing,” said WSU’s Robbie Cowgill, who had a team-high 16 points. “If we wouldn’t have been shooting the ball so well in the first half, we would have really been in trouble.”
With the win, WSU picks up more momentum as it looks to upset No. 7 Arizona on Saturday and earn its first home sweep in a week of Pac-10 play since February 2001.
“They have an ability to not get too high and not get too low and just keep playing and playing. That’s a credit to them,” WSU coach Tony Bennett said of his team. “We shared the ball, guys made some individual plays and we got cooking in the second half.”
The Cougars got some contributions from unexpected places, as little-used Caleb Forrest scored 11 points in 14 second-half minutes. Centers Aron Baynes (ankle) and Chris Henry (back) were unavailable after suffering injuries in practice, so Forrest had to enter the fold. (The two centers’ status for Saturday is unknown.)
“With Aron going out, Coach just told me to be ready,” Forrest said. “I respect him so much that I’ll just work hard in practice and hope for any minutes that I get.”
With the lead extended, Bennett gave his starting guards more rest than usual, perhaps a good sign for the game against the Wildcats still to come. Derrick Low played 34 minutes and Kyle Weaver 29, and both picked up seven assists in their shorter-than-usual nights. Low scored 11 of his 14 points in the first half, but spent much of the second finding teammates like Forrest for open looks at the basket.
“It’s just easy, find the open man,” Low said. “The first couple of shot that went in, that was a big confidence booster for the rest of us to shoot. It was just contagious.”
The Cougars ended up with 20 assists on 26 field goals, and they turned the ball over just six times to an Arizona State team that used a variety of zones throughout the game.
“The experience at times looks like it’s paying some dividends,” Bennett said. “To have a second half like that was very rewarding, because we’re not usually in that spot.”