PULLMAN — Growing up in Hawaii, Derrick Low wasn’t a hunter. No, that had to wait until he got to the Palouse.
Four years after trading trade winds for wind chill, Low has learned the importance of tracking down an occasionally elusive target.
“Coach Tony (Bennett) wants me to hunt my shot,” is how Low describes it.
Becoming a shot hunter has been a slow process for the senior from Honolulu, a process that goes against his basic nature.
“Sometimes I catch a ball and pass up a shot and try to get somebody else (a shot) and the coaches … will say during a timeout, ‘You pass up a shot one more time and something bad will happen to you,’” Low said, laughing.
But their message is serious.
“They tell me, ‘You’re a shooter and you need to take that shot in order to help us.’ ” Low said.
“His role for this team (is) I want him to be aggressive,” Bennett explained. “We need him to shoot and score. … Early (this season) I wasn’t as clear cut and specific with him.”
Low, always one to follow instructions, has done just that. Against Oregon State a week ago, he attacked the basket with the dribble and scored over Josh Tarver on the Cougars’ first possession. In the first 10 minutes of WSU’s 69-46 win, he had taken five shots.
The 6-foot-2 guard topped that in Sunday’s 69-60 win over Oregon, with six shots in the first nine minutes, including two scoring drives. He finished with a game-high 27 points.
But it was a key play late against the Ducks that showed the point guard mentality still resides deep in Low’s heart.
With the Cougars trailing 59-58 with a minute left, Low came off a screen, passed up a look from the outside and pounded the dribble into the key. When Oregon’s Malik Hairston left Kyle Weaver to stop him, Low dumped the ball to his four-year teammate for a layup and a lead WSU would never give back.
“The play he made to Kyle in under a minute, when he attacked, drove and dropped a nice pass, that was a big play,” Bennett said. “In our system … the 1s, 2s, and 3s have to play like point guards, off guards, any type of guard. They have to be able to move off screens, catch and shoot, put it on the floor, create for each other.”
When he first got to Pullman, Low’s role was more of a guide, to help others find the big shot.
“When I was a freshman and sophomore playing the point guard, it was kind of like a pass first, shoot second mentality,” Low said. “Now as a scorer, or having the freedom to hunt my shots down, it’s a score first, create and pass second mentality.”
The arrival last season of current point guard Taylor Rochestie, combined with the maturation of Weaver’s all-around abilities, has taken the burden of initiating the offense off Low’s shoulders. And allowed Low’s inner hunter to come to the surface.
“Coach Tony saw that I could score, so he wanted to try to see how I was at that role,” said Low, who leads the sixth-ranked Cougars in scoring, at 14.4 points per game, and in shots with 169, including 111 3-point attempts. “We tried it and I think it was successful.”
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