Rematch offers drama
PULLMAN – In the joyous celebration outside the visiting locker room in Seattle almost a month ago, Dick Bennett said that his team’s just-completed upset at Washington might help spark a rivalry that had been suffering under the weight of one-sidedness.
The Washington-Washington State rivalry on the hardwood has been, in recent years, nothing like the annual competition on the gridiron, with the Huskies dominating and the Cougars faltering at every turn. So the 79-71 win on Jan. 7, Bennett reasoned, would probably stir things up a bit.
The rematch, however, comes under circumstances that neither team would have likely imagined after Washington State sprinted off the Edmundson Pavilion court. A rivalry game, sure, but also a must win in many regards for both teams.
WSU hasn’t won a game since that upset victory, dropping six in a row. Washington was swept last weekend to drop to 5-4 in the conference, tied for fifth, at the halfway mark.
As such – and with a full week to get ready for the Saturday tip-off – both teams can’t help but look at this game as a golden opportunity to get back on track before it’s too late.
“It’s got juice. We just lost two,” Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. “I don’t think it would matter who we’re playing, it’s important for us to go out and play as hard as we can compete.”
His counterpart, WSU’s Dick Bennett, agreed.
“We’ve made it clear, actually agreed as a group,” he said, “that we would like to make a major effort to turn things around this time.”
For the Cougars, the win at Washington also signified the emergence of a new scoring star in Josh Akognon. Akognon’s 27 in that game, including the game-deciding 3-pointer in the final minute, has been followed up by a remarkable barrage of outside shooting since.
But in his last game, Akognon managed just three points as teams have started to lock down on his perimeter game. Washington, to be sure, won’t make the mistake of leaving Akognon alone for a second game this season.
“They figured it out,” Bennett said of Pac-10 defenses. “Josh is not one who creates his own shot. His shots have been created off of our screens, and we’ve given him as many as possible. But they’ve locked him out by just concentrating on him and we haven’t found a lot of alternate scoring. We had three guys in double figures (at Cal), but double figures for us is 10, 11 and 10. It’s not like 20, 18 and 22.”
Akognon is trying to put the bad memories from the most recent game behind him, favoring recollections of his team’s last win.
“We’d like to bring the momentum of that one, and not necessarily the last six games, into this one,” the sophomore said. “There’s a lot of pressure on this game, but we’ve got to understand that the pressure is on them. We’ve lost six straight. No one is expecting us to (beat Washington) again.”
Friel Court, the site of Saturday’s game, has been home to just two Pac-10 games this season, even though the conference slate is at its halfway point. It’s also been host to more raucous crowds than Bennett had seen in his first two years at WSU, and the opponent this weekend – plus fond memories of January’s game over the mountains – will surely have the fans thinking rivalry game once again.
“I think it’s still the case,” Bennett said. “It would always create interest among the fans, but in terms of a competitive rivalry it probably helped, even though we haven’t won since then.”