WSU-Arizona: ‘Cats Sweep Cougs

It would seem that Washington State plays some of their weakest basketball after enjoying a little home cooking.

Arizona arrived Saturday in Pullman after being man-handled across state in Seattle by the Washington Huskies.

That’s no joke. In the process of that shocker, clearly the Dawgs woke up the ‘Cats.

Arizona defeated the Cougars by a final score of 65-55. The Wildcats were pretty much in control of the game from beginning to end.

Chase Budinger got things off to a terrific start for the ‘Cats, scoring 12 of their first 14 points. That put some swagger back into his game, something that has been missing for the past few weeks.

Usually it’s the Cougs' opponents that are frustrated by tough defense, but Saturday night the shoe was on the other foot. Arizona kept WSU shooters off balance the entire first half, limiting the Cougs to a ridiculous 28 percent from the floor.

The difference in the game was the ability to knock down three point shots. Arizona made 57 percent of their attempts, while WSU converted just five of 22 shots from beyond the arc.

Daven Harmeling continued his shooting slump, missing all three long distance bombs, and Taylor Rochestie could only knock down two of eight trey attempts.

Usually when the typical suspects go missing for the Cougs from downtown range, senior Kyle Weaver steps up. That wasn't the case on Saturday night however, even with his parents in the stands; Weaver went one for six.

Going into halftime, things didn’t seem to be out of control for Coach Tony Bennett and his troops. The Cougs trailed by just a single point after an abysmal 20 minutes on offense.

They kept the game close by completely shutting down freshman star Jerryd Bayless. That’s right, Bayless didn’t have a single point in the first half. How’d he finish? Try recording 20 points, just about his season average.

Bayless picking up the scoring in the second half was nice, but it was his tenacious defense that really made the difference. The Cougs weren’t missing all those three point shots because they were unlucky. No sir. Bayless seemed to be all over the court covering would-be three-point tries by WSU.

The story of this game was quite simple. Arizona played like they wanted the win more than Washington State. For the Cougs, what should have been, and could have been, simply wasn’t. They didn’t have it Saturday night.

Arizona remains very much alive in their quest to earn an invitation to the NCAA tournament. They improved their record to 17-10 on the season and 7-7 in PAC-10 play.

Speaking of tournament invitations, Washington State could use at least one more win out of their final three to assure a trip to the Big Dance. They slipped to a record of 21-6 on the season, with a conference mark of 9-6.

Strange as it might sound, fortunately WSU goes back on the road for two games in northern California. Considering four of their six losses have been in Pullman, that makes sense, doesn’t it?

GO COUGS!!!