WSU 62, Oregon 56: Quick Recap

Washington State now sits all alone in second place in the Pac-12 after a low-pace, low-scoring, workmanlike victory over Oregon — just the second road win by the Cougars over the Ducks since they opened their shiny basketball palace in 2011.

The game started back and forth, with each team feeling each other out over the first 8 minutes. But then the teams traded some small runs: First, a 6-0 spurt by WSU starting with a Jaylen Wells 3 powered the Cougs to a 7-point lead about 10 minutes in; Oregon answered back with 5 unanswered of their own to cut it back to 2; Wells again hit a 3 as WSU countered with 6 more; then each team traded a pair of buckets before Oregon closed the half strong with a 6-0 run that ended with a thunderous coast-to-coast dunk by … N’Faly Dante(?!?)¹ that trimmed the Cougs’ lead all the way down to 2 at the break.

Despite all the attention paid to Wells by Oregon — Ted Robinson sort of laid the Ducks’ game plan bare on the broadcast — he had a quartet of 3s, scoring 12 of WSU’s 29 first-half points.

After more back-and-forth over the first four minutes of the second half, the Cougs finally were able to put some legitimate space between them and the Ducks: WSU outscored Oregon 16-5 over a 7-minute stretch to open up a 9-point lead with just about 10 minutes to go.

Oregon would not lead or even tie the rest of the way — every time the Ducks pushed back on WSU, the Cougs answered with points of their own, and it was the usual suspects who did the damage:

• When Oregon hit a 3 to trim it to 3 with 8 minutes to go, Isaac Jones answered with a gorgeous little hook.

• When Oregon hit a couple of FTs to close it to 2 points with 5 minutes left, Myles Rice hit a 3 — then followed it up with a pair of FTs on the next possession.

• When Oregon hit a 3 to again pull within 3, Jones drew a foul on the very next possession and hit a pair of FTs.

• When the Cougs lost their minds in the last minute and turned it over and Oregon hit another 3, Wells hit a FT, Rice came up with a fortuitous rebound on Wells’ miss on the second, and then Rice hit a pair.

Ballgame.

In A Minute

• CougCenter recap

• Stats

• Line o’ the night: Myles Rice with 21 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists.

• One stat to tell the tale: 4:58 — that’s how long the Cougs went without a FG to end the game. Their final 8 points came at the line on 10 attempts. Clutch.

Tourney Check

Still movin’ on up! Now an 84.1% chance of making the NCAA tournament, given probable results the rest of the way:

Highlights

Three Thoughts

1. Team Toughness

As much as I love to try and quantify things, there are some things that can’t be measured. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and there is now an air of confidence about this team that we don’t see much — last year’s women’s basketball team comes to mind, as does the 2018 football squad led by Gardner Minshew.

These Cougs are unafraid of anyone, oozing confidence as they navigate the court, and I think where this is most noticeable is on offense. While the overall results yesterday weren’t spectacular — 0.97 points per possession is pretty poor!² — there’s just something about the way in which they move through their offensive actions that shows that they know how they want to attack defenses and, if their initial actions get shut down, where they can counter to get a quality look.

Rice is attacking space — often after a ball screen or a hand-off from the center — and if that gets cut off, he’s starting a ball reversing action that often leads to a one-on-one post, and we know that Jones and Oscar Cluff are deadly in those scenarios. And teams have to be careful how they defend those, because Wells and Andrej Jakimovski will make you pay from beyond the arc.

It certainly helps that WSU has a trio of guys who can get their own buckets; that will make any offense look better. But they’re not just running a series of isolations or post-ups that are dependent on one guy making things happen. This team clearly believes there’s nothing an opponent can do to actually stop them. And that is extremely fun to watch.

2. Defensive Adjustments

Much like Thursday’s game at OSU, this one was not a work of art. But I think Kyle Smith put it best postgame: