PULLMAN — Ask any Cougar fan about last year’s 77-74 overtime home loss to Oregon and words usually start flowing that can’t be printed here or spoken on TV.
Adjectives used to describe whether or not the Ducks’ Maarty Leunen was fouled on the final play of regulation. Verbs aimed at referees for not whistling Oregon’s Bryce Taylor for traveling prior to the wayward shot Leunen rebounded. And all matter of epithets, strung together in any way you can imagine, describing the contact on WSU’s Robbie Cowgill on the other end before the Ducks’ final possession.
“Yes, I was,” answered Cowgill earlier this week when asked if he was fouled. “I remember I couldn’t believe no one really mentioned it afterward because (the since-graduated Aaron) Brooks got both arms as I went up for a shot. I was so surprised they didn’t call a foul and he just clobbered me.
“I remember thinking, ‘did no one else see that?’”
But such is the case when the Cougars and Ducks get together on the basketball court recently. There are two near-constants: The games are tightly contested and Oregon finds a way to win (13 times in a row and 21 of the past 22).
“We’ve played good basketball against them, we really have, against some of their very good teams,” said WSU’s Tony Bennett, winless in nine tries as an assistant or head coach against the Ducks. “We’ve had opportunities where you could almost say a couple bounces this way or another, different story.”
With that type of history, if you think the Cougar players are fed up, you are right.
n Taylor Rochestie: “This is definitely a big game. We’re fired up as if it’s the Pac-10 championship game.”
n Kyle Weaver: “Their team, they always get the best of us. It always goes their way. “
n Derrick Low: “I want to beat Oregon so bad. I haven’t been able to beat them since I’ve been here. … They have a long winning streak against us and we definitely want to snap that.”
n Cowgill: “I’m really looking forward to getting that monkey off our back. It’s them and UCLA none of us in the senior class have ever beaten. … It’s about time we get a win against them.”
The Ducks come in to tonight’s contest following a 78-70 loss to Washington Thursday night in Seattle.
Their recent troubles with the Huskies just point out the importance of matchups in college basketball. Oregon has defeated WSU 13 consecutive times. WSU has won the past six against Washington. And the Huskies have handled the Ducks in six of their past eight games and seven consecutive times in Seattle.
“Yes, they pose some matchup problems for us, the way they play,” Bennett said. “They play four perimeter guys and really five when they play Leunen, who can shoot the 3.”
Such an attack challenges the eighth-ranked Cougars’ defensive philosophy.
“I think they really test our pack, our defensive system where we are playing out of the pack in the key,” Cowgill said. “We’re supposed to have good ball pressure, then everyone else is just back in the area (around the basket).
“Because they have four guards and sometimes five guys who play from the perimeter, they do a good job of driving, drawing you and then kicking it and hitting 3s. … They can shoot lights out and they kind of have against us.”
Senior Malik Hairston leads the way for the Ducks, scoring at a 18.3 clip.
, but it’s Leunen, a Pan-Am teammate last summer of WSU’s Low and Weaver, who is at the heart of Oregon’s attack.
The 6-foot-9 senior from Redmond, Ore., averages 15.6 points and 9.7 rebounds a game. He also has connected on half his 52 3-pointers, giving the Ducks a big outside threat in which to stretch Aron Baynes or Cowgill.
Then there is 5-6 guard Tajuan Porter, who leads the Ducks with 111 3-point attempts and may lead the conference in quickness.
“For his size he’s as good as they come,” Daven Harmeling said. “He’s a matchup nightmare, really. You think you can put a small, quick guard on him, but you redefine quick after you watch him play.”
“Porter’s just a lethal weapon,” Rochestie said. “He’s super quick.”
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