Sharpshooter born

PULLMAN – Growing up in Hawaii, Derrick Low wasn’t a hunter. No, that had to wait until he got to the Palouse.

Four years after trading trade winds for wind chill, Low has learned the importance of tracking down an occasionally elusive target.

“Coach Tony (Bennett) wants me to hunt my shot,” is how Low describes it.

Becoming a shot hunter has been a slow process for the senior from Honolulu, a process that goes against his basic nature.

“Sometimes I catch a ball and pass up a shot and try to get somebody else (a shot) and the coaches will say during a time out, ‘You pass up a shot one more time and something bad will happen to you,’ ” Low said, laughing.

But their message is serious.

“They tell me, ‘You’re a shooter and you need to take that shot in order to help us.’ Even though it’s being unselfish and looking to get the ball to your teammates, coach Tony said that, in order for me to serve my team, he thinks I best serve them by being more selfish and taking the shot.”

“His role for this team (is) I want him to be aggressive,” Bennett said. “We need him to shoot and score. … Early (this season) I wasn’t as clear-cut and specific with him.

“This last week, I really challenged him to be more aggressive. He knew he could be more aggressive as the game wore on, but out of the gates, he knows I want him to have an attacking mindset. He doesn’t have to shoot every time, but he needs to be assertive and aggressive.”

Low, always one to follow instructions, has done just that. Against Oregon State a week ago, he attacked the basket with the dribble and scored over Josh Tarver on the Cougars’ first possession. In the first 10 minutes of WSU’s 69-46 win, he had taken five shots.

The 6-foot-2 guard topped that in last Sunday’s 69-60 win over Oregon, with six shots in the first 9 minutes, including two scoring drives. He finished with a game-high 27 points.

But it was a key play late against the Ducks that showed the point guard mentality still resides deep in Low’s heart.

With the Cougars trailing 59-58 with a minute left, Low came off a screen, passed up a look from the outside and pounded the dribble into the key. When Oregon’s Malik Hairston left Kyle Weaver to stop him, Low dumped the ball to his four-year teammate for a layup and a lead WSU never gave back.

“The play he made to Kyle in under a minute, when he attacked, drove and dropped a nice pass, that was a big play,” Bennett said. “In our system … the 1s, 2s, and 3s have to play like point guards, off guards, any type of guard. They have to be able to move off screens, catch and shoot, put it on the floor, create for each other. When any one of them gets a rebound, I tell them just bring it up and we’ll get into it.

“Derrick’s always been, in a good way, simple-minded. Whatever you want him to do, he’ll do. If you want him to be assertive early and aggressive, OK. If we need post touches or we need to get people involved, OK, that’s what he’ll do.”

When he first got to Pullman, Low’s role was more of a guide, to help others find the big shot.

“When I was a freshman and sophomore playing the point guard it was kind of like a pass first, shoot second mentality,” Low said. “Now as a scorer, or having the freedom to hunt my shots down, it’s a score first, create and pass second mentality.”

As a freshman on Dick Bennett’s 2004-05 team, Low got others – most notably senior Thomas Kelati, who averaged 14.3 points per game – the ball in scoring spots.

“My job was just to take care of the ball – to come down and run the offense and get Thomas shots,” Low said.

It was a role at which Low excelled, but even then Bennett, an assistant at the time, knew there were multiple 20-point games in Low’s future.

“His freshman year he was more just bring it up and I think he thought, ‘If I’m wide open I’ll shoot, but I’ll just distribute,’ ” Bennett said. “But his (role) has continued to evolve. Now, we’ve encouraged him to have a scorer’s mentality.”

The arrival of current point guard Taylor Rochestie last season – combined with the maturation of Weaver’s all-around abilities – have taken the burden of initiating the offense from Low’s shoulders. That allowed Low’s inner hunter to come to the surface.

“Coach Tony saw that I could score, so he wanted to try to see how I was at that role,” said Low, who leads the sixth-ranked Cougars in scoring, at 14.4 per game, and in shots with 169, including 111 3-point attempts. “We tried it and I think it was successful.”