By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – For virtually the entire season, the line on Washington State was that, yes, the Cougars might be losing, but they’re making every team sweat.
That didn’t happen in Washington State’s last two games, when the Oregon schools whipped the Cougars (1-16 Pacific-10 Conference, 5-20 overall) by an average of 37 points.
In fact, since the Cougars’ last victory, 81-79 Jan. 31 against Washington, Washington State’s closest loss was by 13 against Stanford.
So are the Cougars simply mailing it in?
“The biggest thing for our team is the mental approach to the game,” WSU coach Paul Graham said. “We’ve done a good job of telling the guys, ‘You’ve competed well; you just haven’t been rewarded. Don’t go out now and give in.’ The biggest thing for us is to get mentally ready to go.”
On the other hand, Washington (4-13, 10-17) has won two of its last three games and has positioned itself on the inside track for the eighth and final berth for the Pac-10 Tournament. A win tonight would force Oregon State to sweep USC and UCLA in Los Angeles in games Thursday and Saturday.
For the Huskies, the tournament would be a welcome reward to a rocky year. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Washington would struggle this season, given the influx of young players coach Bob Bender ushered in. But when the Huskies hit bottom, losing five and six games in a row in a pair of bad stretches, more than a few called for Bender’s resignation.
More than anything, Bender said, the Huskies’ improvement can be traced to the defensive end of the floor.
Bender and the coaching staff challenged the team’s toughness in the days leading up to the Huskies home game against Cal on Feb. 16. It was a different approach from Bender with his young team. Instead of gently nurturing with quiet encouragement, Bender figuratively gave the players a kick in the bum.
The result has been a more active, aggressive, consistent effort on defense, much of it triggered by guard C.J. Massingale.
“C.J. started it at Arizona State (Feb. 9, an 86-74 loss),” Bender said. “He played himself into the starting lineup because of defense. He got out into the passing lanes. Instead of us having a contain mentality of just staying in front of people, we got out aggressively. That made a difference in Corvallis (a crucial 68-63 win against Oregon State). We got out and aggressively defended. Took things away.
“He was doing what we needed everybody to do. Don’t let people catch the ball where they want it. Don’t let people run their offense where they want to.”
In that way, the Huskies were able to beat Cal by 15. They hung with Oregon in Eugene for 40 minutes, losing by six, and might have won were it not for 25 turnovers.
“I didn’t know if we had it in us to compete in Eugene,” Bender said. “Our kids grew up and they handled it. Now, how we play (tonight) would be another statement as to where you’re at. Then you take care of yourself and you get a chance to keep playing into the tournament. We’ll see if we can handle that step.”
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