Washington State Basketball GameDay Huddle: Arizona State Sun Devils

Jan. 26, 2013; Corvallis, OR, USA; Washington State Cougars forward D.J. Shelton (23) shoots over Oregon State Beavers forward Devon Collier (44) in the second half at Gill Coliseum. Cougars defeated the Beavers 71-68. Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports

Two game streaks for our Cougs are simply not going to be easy to attain, but tonight’s a good chance to get one. It’s not a great chance with a very tough Sun Devil squad in town, but at least it’s at home and at least we’re coming off a win. After all, how else do you get a winning streak of 2 or more started?

Unfortunately, us winning tonight is going to depend some on ASU playing bad and Wazzu playing out of their minds, or something like that. The Devils are scorching right now at 16-5 (5-2) and cruised to an 18 point win over UCLA the other day, scoring 78 points. Before that they scored 98 (albeit in OT) against USC.

They are beatable though. Arizona humbled them at Tempe after they lost to the Ducks by three, and earlier in the year they beat Utah by a mere single point at 55-54. So which Devil team will invade Pullman?

Regardless of them, we’ve had our own issues this season, especially since starting Pac-12 play, so I’m sure Bone is telling our guys it’s about us. In a way it is, I mean I fully expect us to somehow be around or in the lead at around the 10 minute mark of the second half, but how will we finish? We finally got it done against Utah and then just Saturday were able to fend off the Beavs at the buzzer. But this team is not your local Ute or Beaver.

As it often does, I think this game comes down to free throws. More specifically how many free throws each team shoots. Making them is a key, but I expect a couple rested squads to hit their free throws tonight, so it’s more about drawing them in this one.

If the Cougs can be patient, but aggressive and not settle for some bad shots (I’m talking to you DJ Shelton) we could get a surprise victory at the charity stripe. I think at times, we get caught in a bad mix of the support guys wanting to be heroes and the guys that should be in that role not being aggressive enough to take over. Hope that doesn’t happen here.

But my hope right now is a little bit fragile, being that ASU is so hot scoring the ball. It just seems like the type of game that ends in a 20-3 run or something after the Cougs play a really good first 33 or 34 minutes.

Go Cougs!