Washington State rides early double-digit lead to comfortable 87-73 win over Florida A&M
PULLMAN – Washington State’s quest for a perfect December lives to see another day.
The Cougars were sloppy at times, sluggish at others, but against a Florida A&M team that was more of both early on, the hosts took a double-digit lead after just 7 minutes and held it for the final 33 to beat the winless Rattlers 87-73 Thursday night at Beasley Coliseum.
CJ Elleby scored a game-high 25 points, falling just two short of his career high, and hounded the glass more than he has all season to come away with a game- and season-high 11 rebounds. Three other WSU players finished in double digits with senior forward Jeff Pollard scoring 12, junior guard Marvin Cannon adding 11 with eight rebounds and freshman guard Noah Williams chipping in 10 more.
If the Cougars, who currently ride a four-game win streak, can emerge with wins over Incarnate Word on Saturday and Arkansas Pine Bluff on Dec. 29 – both games they’ll be favored to win – they’ll finish December with an unblemished 6-0 record. WSU hasn’t gone unbeaten in December since Tony Bennett’s Cougars went 5-0 in December 2007.
“It feels great,” Wiliams said. “My first year here, so we’re just trying to change the culture.”
Kyle Smith’s Cougars (7-4) opened the month with wins over Idaho, New Mexico State and UC Riverside before cruising past Florida A&M in front of a small winter break crowd. The visitors from Tallahassee (0-9) haven’t played a home game all year and have played six of their nine on the West Coast or in Hawaii, so it wasn’t a surprise their shots looked just as weary as their legs.
Florida A&M watched both of its first two shots miss the rim. While the Rattlers worked to find their offense – a full-game endeavor – the Cougars raced out to a 20-5 lead through just 9 minutes.
“I just feel like we stuck to it, kept on playing hard, kept on playing the game,” Cannon said. “Just defense and rebounding, really becoming an identity. Rebound, take care of the ball and defend. We slacked, as you guys could see, on ball security. We turned the ball over way too much in the second half and our defense slipped, so we’ll just come in tomorrow and get better at those areas.”
The ball security and defense went hand in hand. WSU gave the ball away 20 times – 13 in the second half – and the Rattlers scored 31 points off turnovers.
“I was a little concerned because they mix up defenses a little bit between 1-2-2 and run-and-jump,” Smith said of the Rattlers. “I don’t know why, I didn’t think we should be bothered by it much. But it did. It kind of snowballed. I think that’s kind of where we’re at. We’re a little fragile.”
Smith’s team never conceded its double-digit lead, but once the ball-handling began to deteriorate, Florida A&M trimmed a 25-point deficit to 11 with 3:25 to play. But the Cougars, thanks in large part to Ernie Kent holdovers Elleby and Pollard, built their lead back up to 18 points and managed to win by double figures for the third time in four games.
Elleby, who scored 16 second-half points against NMSU and UC Riverside, exploded after halftime again with 17 second-half points against Florida A&M. Pollard, meanwhile, had six of his 12 points in the final 1:46.
“(Elleby) was great all the way around,” Smith said. “He was talking right, he was trying to lead out there. Against Idaho, he didn’t shoot the ball well but I kind of felt the same way … ever since that game, he’s really stepped up on the court as far as taking pride in defending, rebounding and obviously when he shoots it like that. Really efficient, I think these last three games have been ridiculous on his points per shot.”