Washington State unable to keep pace with fourth-ranked Arizona in second half

PULLMAN – Few opponents have managed to keep up with the free-flowing Arizona Wildcats.

Washington State is the most recent Pacific-12 Conference competitor to fall off Arizona’s pace.

The Cougars erased a sizable first-half deficit and made a push early in the second half Thursday at Beasley Coliseum, but the fourth-ranked Wildcats cranked the tempo and raced to a 72-60 victory.

“They can get you quickly, and they did,” WSU coach Kyle Smith said. “They’re relentless.”

WSU (14-8, 7-4), which had its five-game winning streak snapped, went stagnant offensively for much of the first half before surging out of the locker room, trimming a once-17-point Arizona lead to four after four minutes and enlivening a crowd of approximately 5,000 – the best turnout for a Cougars home game since Klay Thompson’s jersey retirement night on Jan. 18, 2020.

“I’m proud of our resilience,” WSU guard Michael Flowers said. “We could have laid down, but we kept chipping away.”

The Wildcats (21-1, 11-1) responded with a flurry of baskets on transition plays and separated, denying WSU its first top-five win since 1983.

Cougars guard TJ Bamba missed a fastbreak layup, which would have made it a two-point game, with 14:52 remaining.

Six minutes later, a well-matched, two-possession game had turned into a runaway. Arizona shared the ball, dominated inside and picked apart the Cougs’ zone defense, outscoring the hosts 25-7 during the stretch.

The Wildcats opened up a 20-point lead after three consecutive 3-pointers in a one-minute span midway through the second half.

“That’s a great program. They really make you work in a lot of different ways and they can create a lot of momentum shifts throughout the game,” Flowers said. “We had a chance to cut it to two. They shot it back up. Hats off to them.”

The Cougars’ first-half offensive woes overshadowed their respectable defensive performance – Arizona committed 18 turnovers and its 72 points matched its third-lowest output of the season.

WSU endured a seven-minute scoring drought late in the first and went into the break down 13. The Cougars shot 26.5% from the floor and 0 of 12 from 3-point range before the intermission.

“You’re not going to beat a good team shooting the way we did,” Smith said. “We need to move the ball more. … We got a little quick and took a couple of bad ones.”

WSU drained 8 of 20 from distance in the second half and gradually sliced into the Wildcats’ 20-point advantage, but it was too late.

“We lost our composure, as far as our execution offensively, but that’s what good teams will do to you,” Smith said. “We had some fight in us, kept competing.”

Arizona guard Bennedict Mathurin, a projected NBA draft lottery pick, topped all scorers with 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Towering post Azuolas Tubelis contributed 15 and 7-footer Oumar Ballo, a Gonzaga transfer, kicked in 10. Wing Dalen Terry grabbed 12 rebounds for the Wildcats, who controlled the glass by a 46-31 margin.

Flowers scored a team-best 16 points (7 of 19) and guard Noah Williams tacked on 10. Efe Abogidi and Mouhamed Gueye put forth solid efforts underneath against one of the nation’s most talented frontcourts, combining for 18 points and 11 boards but shooting 7 of 21.

Gueye injured his ankle late in the game when an Arizona ball-handler inadvertently stepped on him. The freshman from Senegal was helped off the court. Smith said Gueye is questionable to play Saturday against Arizona State.

“He was in the locker room. He feels good, but we’ll see how it goes,” Smith said.

The Cougars played without 6-10, 250-pound center Dishon Jackson, who hasn’t appeared since a Jan. 5 road game against Utah because of an eye injury.

Jackson is also questionable to play when WSU hosts the Sun Devils at 7 p.m. Saturday.

WSU plays for Baynes

The Cougars wore jersey T-shirts during warm-ups featuring the No. 11 and Aron Baynes’ name on the back.

The WSU legend from Australia, who played center in Pullman from 2005-09, is recovering from severe nerve damage suffered at the Tokyo Olympics last year, when he slipped in a changing room.