Rochestie puts clamps on Jenkins

DENVER – It’s easy to underestimate Taylor Rochestie.

When he came out of Santa Barbara High he heard he was too short, too slow, just not good enough to play at the highest level of college basketball.

Over the past four years he’s proved the naysayers wrong, not because he became taller or faster, but because he showed an ability few have.

The ability to rise to whatever challenge presents itself.

“He’s a competive kid,” Washington State coach Tony Bennett said Thursday after the Cougars’ 71-40 rout of Winthrop in the NCAA tournament’s first round. “He wanted the challenge.”

The challenge Bennett was referring to came in the form of 6-foot-3 senior guard Michael Jenkins, the Eagles’ season-long leading scorer.

And, according to Bennett, the straw that stirs the Winthrop offense.

“The people we talked to said if you stopped him, you stopped them,” Bennett said.

So Rochestie spent the past few days pestering assistant coach Matt Woodley for the assignment.

“I spent a lot of time with Coach Woodley, breaking down the film on Jenkins and I’ve been asking to guard him for a couple days,” the 6-1 junior guard said. “Luckily, Tony gave me that assignment.”

And he made the most of it. He held Jenkins, who averaged 14.3 points a game coming in with a high of 33, scoreless in the first half – on just two shots.

But he did have help.

“In the first half, it was easier for me because he didn’t play much,” Rochestie said. “He got a quick two fouls.”

“I felt like in the first half (being that) we played without him for 12 minutes, I thought we were in great shape,” said Winthrop coach Randy Peele. “But the flipside of it is, internally I think he was very frustrated. I think it showed. He played the entire second half through frustration.”

So, as the Cougars went on run after run in the second half, the Eagles couldn’t turn to their leading scorer for a bailout.

Jenkins made just one shot, a 10-foot jumper with 12 minutes, 43 seconds remaining. He finished 1 of 9 from the floor.

Foul play?

Maybe it’s not just Pacific-10 Conference referees having a bad year.

Washington State was just starting to pull away from Winthrop seven minutes into the second half when Kyle Weaver was whistled for a rather bizarre intentional foul by referee Randy Heimerman after being faked into the air on a layup by the Eagles’ Taj McCullough.

“I was shocked – he said I pushed him,” Weaver said. “It was a good move on (McCullough’s) part. I tried not to hurt him or myself. I was kind of on his back when he was on the ground and thank God he didn’t jump or he would have flipped me over. As I was coming down, I tried to grab him and the ref said I pushed him.”

Weaver had a long conversation with lead official Ted Valentine as McCullough prepared to shoot – and miss – his free throws.

Low point

Cougars guard Derrick Low struggled through a miserable first half – scoreless on 0-for-5 shooting – that was ominous to say the least. Low had been scoreless in the first half in three Pac-10 games this season – all losses.

It took less than three minutes of the second half for that omen to go “poof” – Low taking a handoff from Robbie Cowgill and winging in a 3-pointer from behind his screen.

Just before the Cougars took the floor for the second half, Bennett had a word with his senior guard.

“I just challenged him, ‘Don’t go out like this,’ ” Bennett said. “I thought he was a little lackluster in the first half. They did a real nice job of tagging him. He couldn’t get stuff. I just talked to him, ‘OK, if you can’t get a rhythm shot, attack off the dribble – but be assertive.’ When he gets going, that opens everything else up.”