WSU’s comeback falls short in 88-82 road loss to Saint Mary’s

PULLMAN – For a moment, Washington State appeared like they were about to stun everyone in the gym.

It was getting late in WSU’s road test against Saint Mary’s on Saturday afternoon, and after converting two free throws, guard Ace Glass had shifted momentum. After trailing by as many as 18, the Cougars had cut the Gaels’ lead to just three points, a 68-65 margin with about seven minutes left.

“To win these games,” WSU coach David Riley said in a postgame radio interview, “you gotta make sure that you’ve learned all the lessons that you’ve gone through throughout the year.”

In an 88-82 loss to Saint Mary’s, it became clear that the Cougs are still trying to figure out the answers.

It was most noticeable on defense, where WSU (8-10, 3-2 WCC) couldn’t produce enough stops to complete the comeback. Moments after Glass pulled his team within three, Saint Mary’s guard Mikey Lewis unleashed a personal 12-2 run, knocking down three triples and three free throws to push the Gaels’ lead to 13 at 80-67 .

The Cougars continued to fight, pulling within six with a shade under a minute left, but they were whistled for a foul – Riley appeared to be instructing his team not to – that sent the Gaels to the free throw line to put things out of reach.

“We talked a lot earlier in the season about making sure our coverages were on point,” Riley said. “We were not on the same page. We weren’t communicating well. I thought we, for the most part, did a good job of that. But the second part of the season was like, OK, we can execute our coverages, but we gotta do it with the right kind of energy and force. That was the issue right there. I think we were overthinking a little bit with our post coverages, and we were giving up a lot of open threes.”

Sure enough, the long ball sunk WSU. For the game, Saint Mary’s connected on 14 of 30 shots from beyond the arc, including a 6-for-9 effort from guard Joshua Dent, who erupted for a game-high 26 points. Lewis hit three triples for 20 points, and go-to scorer Paulius Murauskas canned two to reach 24 points. Plus, Saint Mary’s connected on 20 of 20 free throws, making things harder on the Cougs to come back.

WSU got 24 points from Glass, who has now scored in double figures in seven straight games, and forward ND Okafor paired 14 points with seven rebounds. That helped the Cougs keep things interesting in the second half. But the visitors came undone on the perimeter, where they couldn’t keep track of the Gaels’ armada of sharpshooters.

The most glaring looks WSU gave up came to Dent, who made the Cougs pay for leaving him open as he tallied 16 points on four treys in the first half alone. Several of his shots were wide-open , including when WSU guard Parker Gerrits doubled off him in the corner, leaving Dent open for a warmup triple, which he cashed.

On the first play of the second half, Dent came off a screen on the wing, which WSU guard Jerone Morton went under. Dent capitalized by hitting that shot also. But not long after that, the Cougs swapped their man-to-man defense for a zone look, which took the Gaels out of rhythm and allowed WSU to make up some ground.

“I thought our guys did a great job in the second half of buckling down and putting bodies on bodies and making them shoot contested shots,” Riley said. “They’re gonna hit some. Murauskas is a hell of a player, and he hit some tough fadeaways and all that. We can live with those as long as we’re making them earn them.”

The Cougars did that for much of the second half. They limited Saint Mary’s, one of the conference’s best rebounding teams, to just eight offensive boards, four fewer than their season average. And the hosts shot just 36% from the field in the second half.

It just wasn’t enough for WSU, which gets an even taller task next week, a home matchup with No. 8 Gonzaga on Thursday. The Bulldogs will be playing on a week of rest.

“I’m proud of this team for getting better,” Riley said, “but the most dangerous thing you can have is a team that feels OK after a loss. And I think that there’s a lot of guys in there that feel like they have some what-ifs, and we gotta make sure that we don’t have that feeling on Thursday night.”