Some mornings I’m eager to get up and write this, and other mornings I really, really don’t want to do it. I bet you can guess what kind of morning this was, after an 8 p.m. tip progressed to a 17-point second-half lead before turning into a 10-point loss.

Alas, the morning got no better when — as I was nearly finished — our doodle, Phoebe, woke up yelping with a limp. The vet says she has a sprain, and after an unexpected day off, I have finally finished this stupid newsletter after starting it eight hours ago. 🙃 

#211 Oregon State - 74
#128 WSU - 64

In A Minute

• WSU drops to #133 in kenpom at 11-14 overall and 6-6 in the WCC. Oregon State improves to #204 at 13-12 and 6-6. Both teams are in a four-way tie for 4th place with San Francisco and Pacific.

• Recap from our friend (and friend of the pod) Nate Dahl at CougCenter

• Stats

• Line o’ the night: ACE GLASS (I guess?) with 17 points on 16 shots, including 5-of-10 from 3 with five rebounds and one turnover. 

• One stat to tell the tale: The Cougs shot only 7-of-22 from 2, a paltry 32%. It was their lowest percentage from inside the arc all season, with the previous low being 33% against Gonzaga.

Highlights

Three Thoughts

1. Willing, but unable

Yesterday morning, I dropped into our premium Slack to start a conversation about the game, saying that I had a bad feeling because it had all the makings of a look-ahead: WSU was coming off of three straight relatively comfortable wins at home, traveling on the road (where they’ve been poor), playing a team they already beat (who will be fired up to play them), with a big game against Santa Clara looming at the weekend.

And yet, even in a loss, this game lacked all the markings of a classic faceplant. The Cougs did not come out flat as they sometimes do; the defensive intensity was there and they weren’t making silly mistakes. Oregon State was able to stay close early simply because we were missing a lot of good looks, and eventually, those started falling: a 17-5 run before halftime took a one-point deficit with five minutes to go and turned it into an 11-point lead at the break. They didn’t let up out of the break, either, pushing the lead to 17 just three minutes in.

But Oregon State kept playing hard. First, the Beavers started to walk the lead down before a run allowed them to catch up¹ with six minutes to go. The lead waffled for the next few minutes … and then it all completely fell apart. More on that in a minute.

I wish I could feel good about the fact that they were prepared and ready for the game, as I frequently criticize David Riley in this regard. And I do want to give some credit for that. But it’s awfully hard get very excited about it when the loss comes with such a thorough and complete collapse.

2. Live by the 3 …

OK, OK — I actually hate that saying, as it originates from a era where 3s were far less plentiful and made at a far lower rate. But it’s apt in this one.

If you simply look at the overall numbers, it doesn’t look that bad: 10-of-31 from deep, 32.3%. If they simply make one more out there, the Cougs are basically at their season average. But context is everything, as they say, and there are a couple of important pieces of it that we have to note.

The first is that WSU went stone cold at the worst possible time: After hitting 6-of-15 in the first half, they were 4-of-16 in the second half and made just two of their final 14:

The second thing is what you see above: They got way, waaaaaaaay 3 happy down the stretch. In a game in which the refs were all too eager to blow their whistle — something that benefited WSU with lots of free throws early in the second half! — the Cougs basically abandoned going to the rim. Here are their makes/misses/turnovers during the decisive run in which OSU blew the game open over the final four minutes. This started with the game tied and ended with OSU leading by 11 (the gray lines are where OSU scored):²

No 2-point attempts and just two free throws in the final four minutes of a game in which WSU shot 24 free throws in the other 36 minutes. Terrible decision making on the part of the players.

3. Just not tough enough, again

This team has made some major strides this season, but sometimes stuff from earlier in the year rears its ugly head, and last night was one of those times. Over and over again in Riley’s tenure, we’ve watched his team fall apart down the stretch of close games.

The details change a little each time, but the common thread is that the team seems to panic and lose all their discipline when there is an ounce of pressure on them as time winds down.

The plethora of 3-point attempts above speaks to that: Throwing up a 3 when the game feels like it’s slipping away is an easy solution to a difficult problem; what’s harder is keeping your nose down and working for the best shot in a game where the refs were very willing to reward aggressors.

The other thing that speaks to the lack of discipline is just how easily Oregon State scored in the final four minutes. WSU played good defense for most of the game, but in that decisive stretch, it looked like this:

WSU literally did not get even one stop in the final four minutes. Not. Even. One. And I don’t even think it was for lack of trying; in fact, I think they often were trying too hard — getting themselves out of position such that the integrity of the defense broke down over and over, leading to easy buckets for the Beavers.

With few exceptions, I believe discipline is taught, and that a lack of it can be directly laid at the feet of the coach.

And I don’t think a coach suddenly learns how to coach discipline into his players.

Up Next: vs. #36 Santa Clara

The Broncos are 20-5, sit atop the WCC at 11-1 (thanks to Gonzaga’s stunning loss to Portland) and are on track for their best season in the kenpom era (post-1997). Their previous best season was last year. Herb Sendek has done an incredible job in this third act of his coaching career, even if nobody really seems to be noticing just how incredible of a job it is. (They’ll probably notice soon.)

This represents one of three remaining chances in the regular season for the Cougars to get a win over a top 100 team. They’ve not gone without one since Dick Bennett’s first season. Thankfully, the game is at home, where the Cougars play like a top 100 team themselves. Still, the predictive metrics give them only about a 25% chance of coming away with a win.

Tip off is at 3 p.m. on Saturday from Beasley Coliseum on ESPN+.

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1  The run that closed the gap included a pair of turnovers that referees literally fabricated. One was a jumpstop/step through by Simon Hildebrandt that was called a travel. It’s not a travel, and I’m stunned the ref was fooled by it. The second was a double dribble where ND Okafor used a gather “dribble” off a defensive rebound into two hands before dribbling up the floor. That’s not a double dribble. The guy who blew that call was Eric Curry, a veteran official (recognizable by his stark white hair) who used to work a lot of high major games — his schedule used to be dominated by the Pac-12, Big Ten, and Mountain West — but has only worked one this season (for the Big 12). The Big Ten and Mountain West stopped contracting him two years ago. Make of that what you will.

2  You’ll note the four points in a row where WSU didn’t touch the ball around the 2 minute mark is where the officials decided to assess a Flagrant 1 foul on Jerone Morton, a patently absurd call. The Cougars were already crumbling, so they may well have lost without it, but the insane upgrade certainly put OSU in the driver’s seat.