WSU-Cal: Cougs Near Perfect in Berkeley

For the first time this season, Washington State had a very solid game from every starter.  The result?  A rock solid win in Berkeley Thursday night over a pretty good Cal team, 70-49.

The Cougs were just ridiculous in their shooting from the field, canning over 54 percent of their attempts.  Thanks to some nifty drive and dish plays Aron Baynes was a perfect 4-4 from the floor, while Robbie Cowgill, celebrating his 22nd birthday, was a perfect 3-3 from the floor.  Happy Birthday, Robbie!

Junior Taylor Rochestie looked lame in comparison to these two, going 6-9 from the field.  In his defense, Taylor was 4-5 from behind the three-point arc.  Not too shabby.

Coach Tony Bennett has to be extremely pleased with his team’s performance.  Not only did WSU execute on offense, their defense was suffocating.

WSU was even able to slow Cal's Ryan Anderson, the leading scorer in the PAC-10.  Anderson is such a talented player, shutting him out is most often a pipe dream.  But holding him to 17 points went a long way toward earning the Cougs another “W”.

Going just 5-15 from wherever he could squeeze off a shot is far from Anderson-like.  In fact, WSU took Cal completely out of their comfort zone, harassing the Bears into shooting a paltry 37 percent.  Yikes!

Many “experts” scoff at the suggestion that the Cougs can light it up when they need to, but Washington State raced out to a 7-2 lead early on and never looked back.  Given Cal's scoring ability, WSU needed to get the job done on offense.

Check this out.  Every starter for the Cougs was in double figures, with the exception of Cowgill.  Robbie had eight.  Considering how many trips the Cougs made down court—running the shot clock down to less than five seconds before taking a shot—scoring 70 points is impressive.  Experts?  What was that you said?

But it really wasn’t about offense.  It was all about defense for Bennett and the Cougs.  By holding the Bears to 49 points, they kept the PAC-10’s leading offense 28 points below their high-flying season average.

Don’t bother going to the trouble of checking Cal’s record on the season.  Yes, 49 points is a season low.

With the game in the record books, you’d never know that Washington State’s sixth man, Daven Harmeling, didn’t play.  That wasn’t a coaching decision—Daven rolled his ankle during practice Tuesday and wasn’t ready to answer the bell.  Chances are he’ll be on the sidelines Saturday when WSU moves across the San Francisco Bay to Palo Alto, home of the No. 8 Stanford Cardinal.

Speaking of that…surprisingly, University of Washington took Stanford down to the wire earlier Thursday evening before the Cardinal eked out an 82-79 victory over the Dawgs.

It’s the time of year to be playing your best basketball.  Following this win up with another on Saturday will have Washington State steaming into the conference tournament, then onto the NCAA Tournament.

Finishing strong will help the Cougs in a couple of big ways.  First and foremost, confidence is extremely important when you're playing the best teams in the country.  And that’s what is ahead for WSU.  Secondly, it’s important to gain a high seeding in the NCAA brackets if you expect to make a run deep into the tournament.

Tonight Washington State looked like an Elite Eight team.  And there’s still room for improvement.

They were near perfect, but there was a gap between tonight's performance and their potential.  The Cougs came darn close to realizing their potential, though.  Darn close.

This gritting, experienced team is exciting to watch.  Especially when they want a win more than their opponent.

GO COUGS!!!