LOS ANGELES — Twice during the regular season Washington State played the Stanford Cardinal.
Both were typical Cougar games, built on defense, ball control and patience.
And twice WSU lost.
So Friday night in the semifinals of the Pacific-10 Conference tournament, the Cougars tried something different. They tried to outscore the 11th-ranked Cardinal.
That didn’t work either.
The Cougars fell to Stanford, 75-68, at Staples Center despite despite some good offensive numbers. Kyle Weaver scored a career-high 25 points, the second time he’s set a career best against the Cardinal this season. Derrick Low added another 15 points, making four 3-pointers and the Cougs made 12 of 20 3-point attempts as a team.
WSU’s main problems were turnovers and Stanford’s inside game. The Cougars tried double-teaming the Cardinal’s all-conference post Brook Lopez, but the 7-foot sophomore still finished with 30 points and 12 rebounds. Stanford dominated the boards overall, holding a 34-27 rebounding edge, including 13 on the offensive end.
The Cougars didn’t take care of the ball very well, committing 17 turnovers after having just 13 combined against the Cardinal in the regular season games.
Despite all that, WSU was still in the contest with 6:30 to play, trailing 57-54 while Stanford was still getting over the shock of the Cougars’ zone.
But five consecutive empty possessions — two turnovers, a Robin Lopez block of a Weaver dunk attempt, and two misses — resulted in a 10-0 Cardinal run and a 67-54 lead. The Cougars never got closer than three after that — on Weaver’s putback with 24.3 seconds to go, one of his 12 rebounds.
The Cardinal’s Mitch Johnson hit enough free throws down the stretch to hold off WSU.
The most different play of the game wasn’t even planned and it involved an official’s call, something that has happened with regularity this Pac-10 season.
Baynes was called for his fifth foul with 5:04 left. Both Taylor Rochestie and WSU coach Tony Bennett protested that the foul should have been Rochestie’s but to no avail. Lawrence Hill stepped to the line, hit two free throws and the Cougars threw the ball in.
Then a whistle blew and the three officials decided to check the television monitor. After a little more than 30 seconds, they called the coaches together, assessed Rochestie the foul and let Baynes back into the game.
He played the rest of the way.
After jumping out to a 13-8 lead due to three 3-pointers, the Cougars became turnover prone. And the Cardinal were happy to accept the largesse, turning it into nine consecutive points just before the midpoint of the half. In the first 12 minutes, the Cougars, who average just 10.3 a game, had five.
Stanford built the lead to as many as seven, 24-17, before WSU made a little run to tie it at 26 on Weaver’s two free throws.
Though the Cardinal had eight offensive rebounds in the 10 minutes – WSU had one – the Cougars were able to hang close due to near-perfect 3-point shooting.
With Weaver and Rochestie each connecting on two and Low and Daven Harmeling adding one each, the Cougars scored 18 of their first 24 points from beyond the arc.
At halftime they had hit 6 of 8, while only connecting on 4 of 16 shots inside the arc. A big part of that, of course, was the length of Robin Lopez (two first-half blocks) and the rest of the Cardinal. By halftime, four of WSU’s inside shots had been rejected — and a number altered.
The Cougars have led Stanford at half the last five times the teams have played, but lost all but one. The Cardinal made sure the halftime lead part of that ended (they led 34-30 at the break), thanks in part to Hill’s 10 points and Brook Lopez’s 11 (and seven rebounds).
But an assist had to be given to WSU’s foul trouble.
Low, Baynes and Cowgill all had two — Cowgill playing just eight minutes — and sat big chunks of time.
The Cardinal didn’t begin to experience the same problem until Washington State started blocking out on the offensive boards.
Harmeling showed how, screen off Robin Lopez twice in a 2-minute span and forcing the 7-foot sophomore into two rebounding fouls. The better positioning by WSU resulted in Stanford only collecting one offensive rebound in the final 10 minutes, and Brook Lopez promptly had that one stripped by Nik Koprivica for a turnover, one of Stanford’s six.
WSU finished the half with seven and they were a varied lot. An offensive foul, miscommunication, ill-advised drives into traffic, bad passes, all resulted in extra Stanford possessions. Coupled with the Cardinal’s nine-second chance points, WSU must have felt lucky to be down just four.
The Cougars cut that to two right out of the break on Weaver’s fastbreak bucket, but they then wasted two chances to tie as Rochestie couldn’t get a floater over Brook Lopez to fall and then had a turnover on the next possession.
With 16:56 left, WSU had equaled it season average (a little over 10) and it exceeded it less then a minute later when, after Bennett used a time out, the Cougars couldn’t get a shot off in 35 seconds.
By then Stanford had another seven-point edge and was in control.
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