PULLMAN — For the past four years, all Washington State men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett could do was watch.
Assistant or head coach, it didn’t matter.
Nine times he saw Oregon make play after play down the stretch. Nine times he watched as the Ducks found ways to win every game against the Cougars.
The view finally changed Sunday night.
It was the eighth-ranked Cougars making all the big plays late, pulling away in the final minutes for a 69-60 Pacific-10 Conference victory before a raucous crowd of 11,120 in Beasley Coliseum.
“When the game gets reved up to a high level … you can run all the tricky little plays, but it comes down to making plays,” Bennett said. “It wasn’t the most beautiful, but it was the best we could do. It wasn’t poetry in motion … but those are the plays that have to be made.
“I’ve learned that a few times the hard way.”
The hard-earned win — Oregon led the first 25 minutes, 3 seconds, until Kyle Weaver’s 19-foot jumper put WSU up 42-41 — raised WSU’s record to 16-1 and pulled the Cougars into a tie with UCLA and Arizona State for the Pac-10 lead with a 4-1 mark.
That a win over the Ducks would lift the Cougs to rarely-seen heights is appropriate, since they hadn’t defeated Oregon since 2001, a losing streak that had reached 13 games. And, when the Ducks broke out to 7-0, 12-2 and 17-6 leads, Bennett thought he was watching a sequel.
“The way we started,” Bennett said, “I thought, ‘Is this going to be like the UCLA game?’ Being down (12-2), maybe being at home helped us.”
At Pauley Pavilion the Cougars couldn’t rally from an early 11-1 deficit, but Weaver said they learned from the experience.
“I don’t think we get frustrated,” he said of the early deficit, something that has plagued WSU this season. “I think we stay calm throughout the game. … Especially for us this season, for some reason, when we’re down, we’re never out.”
Not when you have Derrick Low to turn to.
In the five games WSU has trailed at intermission, Low was averaging 16.6 points in the second half and the Cougars had won four of them. Make it five of six after Low exceeded even that average with 18 second-half points, hitting six of seven shots, including three of four from beyond the arc.
“You have to see what the defense gives,” Low said after finishing with a season-high 27 points. “Oregon was chasing me pretty well off the screens. You know how I like to hunt my shot, come off screens, catch and shoot and they did a pretty good job of chasing that.”
So he adjusted.
“I had to counter by taking it hard to the lane, just to try to bring the defense in and possibly kick out. I got a couple of drives and ones, and a nice pass to Kyle.”
The pass he is referring to came with a minute left and gave WSU a lead it would never relinquish.
The Cougars had held the earlier lead for less than 40 seconds, with the Ducks stretching the margin back to six at a couple points.
“They exploited some matchups and caused us to look silly at times,” Bennett said of Oregon’s four-guard attack. “They had us scrambling, that’s what they do. But when we needed to come up with a big play, there was one. Sometimes it’s just one big play at the right time that can make the difference.”
Which brings us back to the final minute.
Leading 59-58, the Ducks (12-6, 3-3) stayed patient just as they had most of the game. As the shot clock ran down, quick 5-foot-6 guard Tajuan Porter got past Taylor Rochestie and into the key. But the 6-6 Weaver came over, got a piece of Porter’s floating shot, altering it enough it missed the rim, causing a shot-clock violation.
With a minute left, Bennett put the ball in Low’s hands. And Low attacked.
“I saw him drive, so I just tried to get to the basket and find an open spot,” Weaver said. “He found me for an easy one.”
The layup — the last of Weaver’s 16 points, to go with eight assists and six rebounds — put WSU up 60-59.
The Ducks called a timeout, but the ball didn’t go to 6-9 Maarty Leunen, who had already torched the Cougars’ pack defense with 20 points, hitting three of seven 3-point attempts. Instead, Malik Hairston, who finished with 14 points, shot a jumper over Robbie Cowgill at the top of the key, came up short, and Rochestie was fouled after grabbing the rebound.
“It was a good shot,” Leunen said. “Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t.”
Rochestie’s two free throws gave WSU a three-point lead, its biggest of the night.
Bryce Taylor tried to counter with a drive, Cowgill blocked the shot from behind and Rochestie, who was 0-for-4 from the field, connected on two more free throws to seal Oregon’s defeat. It was only the second loss coach Ernie Kent has suffered against WSU in 22 games.
And he knew who was responsible.
“I thought his willpower to win the game, to not let us win a 14th straight game, was really good,” Kent said of Low, who was entertaining friends and family from Hawaii this weekend. “He hit some big, big shots. We had guys draped all over him on some of those … and they were just bottom of the net.
“You’ve got to tip your hat to him because we put him in a tough situation and he came up big and knocked down some big shots.”
Leunen, who added a game-high 13 rebounds, saw the result from a different angle than Bennett, but from the same perspective.
“They just made a couple more plays and that’s why they won,” the senior said.
WSU center Aron Baynes, who finished with 11 points and seven rebounds, had to chase Leunen and the Oregon guards out on the perimeter. “There was no way I was going to leave Aron in the lane and let Leunen play horse,” Bennett said of his 6-10 center. “The big boy worked hard. I think he’ll rest well tonight.”
… Porter made his first start for the Ducks since the first weekend of the Pac-10 season. … WSU had just seven turnovers and forced 15. The Ducks turned the tables on the boards, with 33 rebounds – 10 offensive – to the Cougars’ 23.
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