Cougars hold off Texas State in overtime after up-and-down performance

PULLMAN – Ernie Kent was happy to grade his team’s last test of finals week on a pass/fail basis. But next semester’s challenges will prove much tougher than Friday night’s pop quiz, a 78-73 overtime victory over Texas State.

“You’ve got to understand, we don’t start the game with 10,000 people, so you’re always generating your own energy,” Kent said. “Finals drains you completely, having to study, and then you come into the game having to get your energy up and it’s just not there. So I thought we did a good job fighting through it.”

With few students or families in town as the semester ends, Friday’s attendance was a bleak 1,233.

The schedule for WSU (7-2) has been intentionally light as Kent sought to season seven newcomers and build their confidence through victories. Other than their previously scheduled game against Gonzaga, the Cougars have yet to play a team with a top-125 RPI.

WSU’s farthest and only road trip this season took the Cougars 8 miles away, to Idaho, where they lost, in an upset.

That all changes next Tuesday, when the Cougars face No. 3 Oklahoma in the first of three games in the Diamondhead Classic, which is held Dec. 22-25 in Honolulu.

“When you play a team like Oklahoma you can’t take a play off,” guard Ike Iroegbu said. “That’s where we’ve got to fix our slow starts. If we start off slow they’ll just come back and hit us in the mouth. That can’t happen. It won’t happen.”

The Cougars vastly outplayed the visiting Bobcats in many respects. WSU ended the game with a 43-21 rebounding advantage, shot 53.7 percent from the field and led by as many as 13 points.

But the Bobcats managed to frustrate the WSU offense by constantly switching from man to zone defense, with some full-court press interspersed. The shifts succeeded in holding WSU’s leading scorer, Josh Hawkinson, to just six field-goal attempts, although he still managed 17 points and 12 rebounds thanks to an 8-for-10 night at the free-throw line.

Iroegbu and Que Johnson held the Cougars afloat on offense with 18 and 13 points, respectively, while Conor Clifford chipped in 11 points at center. But as the Cougars tried to get their big men touches, the entry passes were often off the mark and WSU finished with 20 turnovers to 14 assists.

“I thought we got too stagnant, tried too much to get the ball inside and we got out of flow a little bit,” said Kent.

Ultimately, Kent is willing to chalk up Friday’s close call as a learning experience. The Cougars are 4-0 in overtime games under Kent and managed to be the aggressors at the end of both regulation and overtime.

Texas State’s Emani Gant, who led all scorers with 24 points, tied the game at 66 with 45 seconds left, but the Cougars had a chance to win it after rebounding an Anthony Roberson miss and calling time out with 10 seconds left.

The play call called for Hawkinson to receive a ball screen, but the Bobcats’ shifting defense again confused the Cougars, who had to settle for a contested runner from Charles Callison that glanced off the rim.

The Cougars scored 11 of the first 15 points in overtime to take control of the game and pass their final test of the easy portion of the season, even if they needed a little extra time.

“We’re not going to beat a lot of teams in our conference with that kind of a grade,” Kent said. “And we know that. So you just take the win, you move on, you teach, you learn, you move on and get better. Got the game done, let’s get ready for the next one.”