Late run carries Cougars
PULLMAN – Seeing a basketball game decided in the final minutes is nothing new, so with the Cougars clinging to a 53-49 lead with 2 minutes, 15 seconds left to play Saturday, it seemed anything could happen.
But what Washington State ended up doing to Arizona State was both improbable and impressive.
At that moment Kyle Weaver zipped a pass to Chris Henry, who sank a layup a second later and was fouled to create a three-point play. That started an 11-0 game-ending run and turned a close game into a 64-49 win.
“I just felt like it could go either way,” WSU coach Dick Bennett said. “Fortunately, we just made some plays down the stretch.”
Doing so may have saved the Cougars from a rough start to the Pac-10 season. Going 0-2 in the first week of play could have buried WSU, which faces a three-game road trip that starts Saturday against Washington. Instead, WSU (8-3, 1-1 Pac-10) managed to get into the conference win column early.
“We just knew there was a big difference between starting off the conference season 0-2 and 1-1,” point guard Derrick Low said. “We just used that as motivation and stepped it up on the defensive end and tried to get the easiest baskets we could on the offensive end.”
Weaver’s 15 points and Low’s 13 led the way for WSU, but it was on the other end of the floor where the two may have made their biggest contributions.
Arizona State (6-5, 0-2), able to get almost nothing going in the paint, was forced to rely upon guards Kevin Kruger and Bryson Krueger for offense. While Kruger scored a game-high 23 points, Krueger was miserable from the floor, shooting 1 for 15 on his way to just three points.
As a result, the Sun Devils ended up running screen after screen for Kruger on almost every possession. Fourteen of his points came in the first half, and Weaver’s defense on Kruger in the second helped frustrate the junior guard.
“We came in knowing he wanted to get a lot of shots off and that he would be a primary threat,” Weaver said. “Chasing him around all those screens was not fun. But I had to do it. My teammates helped me out.”
Added Bennett: “He was able to get him to hesitate momentarily and disrupt his rhythm, and that’s about all you can do against a shooter of that caliber. We had to come up with some of our best position defense. We helped on the screens very well.”
It also didn’t hurt that the Cougars were more aggressive on the offensive end than their opponents, making 20 of 26 free throws while Arizona State made it to the line just 10 times – eight times for Kruger.
The Cougars were also successful in improving on the glass, as a 20-rebound deficit against Arizona Thursday night turned into a four-rebound edge against ASU.
Those edges helped WSU hold a lead the entire second half – and then put the game away when it counted.
“The fact that we were ahead just by a couple or whatever it was,” Bennett said, “forced them to be more aggressive and that created some fouls.”
Notes
Rodney Edgerson got his first career start for WSU, but played just 11 scoreless minutes, eight of them in the first half. … Arizona State guard Tyrone Jackson rejoined the team in time to start after flying to Fresno, Calif., following the Sun Devils’ loss at Washington two days earlier when learning a high school friend had died of leukemia. Jackson scored four points and had six assists in 31 minutes. … Arizona State opponents had shot 41.2 percent from 3-point range coming in, and WSU topped that by going 6 of 11.
WSU 64, Arizona St. 49
| Arizona St. | FG | FT | Reb | ||||
| (6-5, 0-2) | Min | M-A | M-A | O-T | A | PF | PTS |
| Pendergraph | 26 | 1-3 | 0-0 | 0-3 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Angounou | 18 | 2-4 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Krueger | 32 | 1-15 | 0-0 | 0-3 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| Kruger | 36 | 6-16 | 6-8 | 0-3 | 2 | 2 | 23 |
| Jackson | 31 | 2-3 | 0-0 | 1-3 | 6 | 2 | 4 |
| Atuahen | 17 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 2-3 | 1 | 5 | 2 |
| Alridge | 1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Seay | 4 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Claudino | 4 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Austin | 11 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Goldstein | 20 | 3-6 | 1-2 | 3-4 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
| Totals | 200 | 18-51 | 7-10 | 9-28 | 12 | 24 | 49 |
Percentages: FG .353, FT .700. 3-Point Goals: 6-17, .353 (Kruger 5-10, Krueger 1-6, Seay 0-1). Team Rebounds: 5. Blocked Shots: 2 (Angounou, Goldstein). Turnovers: 15 (Kruger 4, Atuahen 3, Pendergraph 2, Claudino 2, Goldstein 2, Krueger, TEAM). Steals: 4 (Pendergraph, Kruger, Jackson, Godstein). Technical Fouls: None.
| Washington St. | FG | FT | Reb | ||||
| (8-3, 1-1) | Min | M-A | M-A | O-T | A | PF | PTS |
| Cowgill | 34 | 2-7 | 4-4 | 0-4 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| Henry | 23 | 3-5 | 1-1 | 1-4 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Low | 34 | 4-6 | 3-4 | 0-3 | 3 | 3 | 13 |
| Weaver | 32 | 4-4 | 5-7 | 0-4 | 4 | 1 | 15 |
| Edgerson | 11 | 0-3 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Akognon | 9 | 1-4 | 2-2 | 1-3 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Baynes | 3 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Green | 22 | 1-3 | 3-4 | 0-3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Chavers | 2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Clark | 20 | 2-4 | 1-3 | 2-4 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| Forrest | 10 | 2-5 | 1-1 | 1-3 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Totals | 200 | 19-41 | 20-26 | 6-31 | 15 | 15 | 64 |
Percentages: FG .463, FT .769. 3-Point Goals: 6-11, .545 (Low 2-2, Weaver 2-2, Green 1-1, Akognon 1-3, Edgerson 0-3). Team Rebounds: 2. Blocked Shots: 5 (Cowgill 2, Weaver, Akognon, Clark). Turnovers: 14 (Cowgill 3, Green 3, Low 2, Henry, Weaver, Edgerson, Akognon, Chavers, Clark). Steals: 3 (Low, Weaver, Green). Technical Fouls: None.
Halftime–Washington State 31, Arizona State 27. A–2,506.