Oregon puts on shooting display, edges Washington State 89-84 for Cougars first home loss of season

PULLMAN — Kyle Smith gathered his assistants during a break in the action, a brief respite from Oregon’s scorching shooting. Washington State’s brain trust formed a circle near the arc, discussing what their team could do to slow the Ducks’ offense onslaught.

Play zone? Play man? Hope and pray?

None of it quite helped WSU temper Oregon’s shooting enough to prevent a 89-84 loss on Saturday night. The Cougs did well to keep pace, hanging around in the second half, but they couldn’t go step-for-step.

“They’re very good offensively obviously, and we just didn’t guard the whole night,” WSU coach Kyle Smith said, “whether it was man or zone — we just couldn’t. Credit to them. They made a lot of shots. But it didn’t feel like we were as engaged as we’ve been.”

“Just a lot of lazy hands,” added WSU guard Myles Rice, who scored a team-best 22 points, one of five Cougars to score in double figures. “Out of their 14 threes I think they made, I wanna say 12 of them were basically open. We gotta do a better job of closing out. Even like when the shot clock’s late, we didn’t have our hands up. They might have hit a backboard 3, but you still gotta get a hand up to make the shot harder.”

The numbers tell the story best. For the game, Oregon shot 58% from the field and connected on 14 of 24 triples. Guard Brennan Rigsby led the Ducks with 18 points on 4 long balls, and Jermaine Cousinard and Jackson Shelstad combined for 4 more treys. Oregon finished the game scoring 1.41 points per possession, and if that number held for the season, it would lead the country by a wide margin.

WSU (10-5, 1-3 Pac-12) never could slow down Oregon, particularly not from beyond the arc. That’s where the Ducks did the most damage — and it’s how they kept the Cougs from sustaining anything resembling a comeback.

In the second half, after Rice converted an and-one opportunity to draw within eight, Oregon followed with a 3 from Cousinard. Moments later, the Cougs got a triple from guard Isaiah Watts, only for the Ducks to match it.

Then Washington State pieced together its most promising run of the game: Triple from Watts, driving layup from wing Jaylen Wells, then a violent dunk from forward Isaac Jones. Beasley Coliseum’s crowd lit up. Then Oregon made WSU pay for returning to a zone defense by sinking another long ball, this one courtesy of Kario Oquendo.

With that bucket, Oregon pushed its lead to 81-75. From there, WSU kept pushing. The Cougs cut it to four on the other end with a putback from Watts. Except that’s when Oregon responded with a banked 3, going back ahead by seven — only for WSU swing Andrej Jakinmovski to can a triple through contact, clawing back within four.

The Cougs kept the pressure on. They trimmed the Ducks’ lead to two on a tough layup from Rice. Then they secured a stop, giving themselves a chance to tie the game. That’s when Rice got the ball with a head of steam, drove to the basket, survived some contact as the ball went out of bounds… and upon review, the ball remained with WSU.

Washington State couldn’t pay it off. Jakimovski misfired on a catch-and-shoot 3 in the corner. On the other end, Oregon responded with a deep 3 from Jadrian Tracey, whose basket gave the Ducks an 87-82 lead with 40 seconds to play.

That forced WSU to foul to stop the clock. The Ducks put it away at the free throw line.

Still, Smith said he couldn’t take much solace in that comeback attempt.

“Not at home. You can’t really,” Smith said. “Gotta defend, rebound, take care of the ball, and we got outplayed in all three areas.”

All told, it’s a disappointing result for Washington State, which largely kept pace with a hot Oregon team. Offense has sometimes eluded the Cougs during this opening stretch of Pac-12 play. It did not on Saturday night. It just didn’t turn into a win for WSU.

For the Cougs, part of the problem was that the Ducks were shooting it so well — and playing with so much athleticism in the absence of their two best post players, N’Fale Dante and Nate Bittle — that they played off the court some of WSU’s best bigs, Rueben Chinyelu and Oscar Cluff. Those guys combined for just 28 minutes.

Those are the players Washington State prefers to play through. The Cougs didn’t have the option of doing so in this loss, which forced them to play small. They couldn’t parlay that into a win.

Still, it added up to an encouraging showing from Watts, who came off the bench 10 points in 15 minutes. He sank 4 of 6 shots, including 2 of 3 from deep. It’s possible he capitalized on a rare opportunity with his team forced to play small — but it’s also possible he earned more minutes moving forward, no matter the situation.

The Cougs’ next chance to find out comes Wednesday, when they visit USC for an evening tip-off.

“I didn’t really have any nerves. It’s really just a game to me,” Watts said. “Just get out there and have some fun, and that’s really what I did. I’m just a little frustrated that I couldn’t pull it off.”