Cal Finishes Off WSU 67-54
By Lew Wright
Washington State hopped on a charter plane to the Bay Area for their second Pac-12 road game Saturday afternoon at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, CA. Lacking offensive power in the second half, the Cougars will jump back on their charter and head back to Pullman 0-3 in conference play.
The game story for Coach Ken Bone’s squad mirrored the Stanford contest. WSU (9-7, 0-3) played tough for about 30-minutes of basketball then went as cold as January weather on the Palouse.
It was the Cal Bears (10-6, 2-2) who played smart basketball down the stretch.
This was a close game at intermission. Cal went to their lockers at halftime with a 29-27 edge.
Just five minutes into the second half, Washington State went up by 3. The Cougs were poised to make a run that never materialized. Cal put together a 12-2 run over the next 8 minutes to take control of the game.
Make no mistake about this Cougar team. They are a scrappy bunch of guys. Unfortunately no points are awarded for hustle or effort.
Typically any team that grabs significantly more offensive boards earns a win. WSU garnered an 18-6 advantage over Coach Mike Montgomery’s group. But there wasn’t one guy in a crimson uniform who consistently put the ball through the hoop. As a team WSU shot an ineffective 33.3% from the field while their opponents were cashing in on 48.6% of their attempts.
Coach Montgomery had the formula to get his team back to 2-2 in Pac-12 play. Frustrate senior Brock Motum and make some other Coug prove they can score. The Bears executed that basic defensive scheme beautifully limiting Motum to 16 points as the Cal head man watched the rest of the WSU players tense up.
Senior Mike Ladd had a double-double scoring 12 points while grabbing 12 rebounds. The only other Cougar to reach double-digits scoring was sophomore Royce Woolridge who tallied an even dozen.
Washington State will play host to Utah this coming Wednesday in Beasley Coliseum at 6:30pm and begs the question…
Will Coach Bone be able to come up with a game plan which will foster scoring from someone other than Brock Motum?