Table of Contents

• WSU 64, Oregon State 58: Quick Recap

• In A Minute

• Tourney Check

• Highlights

• Three Thoughts

  • 1. A really nice win

  • 2. Jaylen Wells appreciation

  • 3. Tremendous defense

• Up Next

WSU 64, Oregon State 58: Quick Recap

In what would be nobody’s conception of a beautiful game of basketball, the Washington State Cougars outlasted the Oregon State Beavers for an important road victory that kept them just one game behind Arizona for the league lead.

Neither team came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, as they combined to shoot about 40% from the field in the first half with 17 combined turnovers. It was quite the turnaround from Saturday’s free-flowing offensive display in Seattle. (Fortunately/unfortunately, not many people saw it, as most folks tuning into Pac-12 were “stuck” watching the triple OT thriller between Arizona and Utah.)

A lot of that had to do with Isaac Jones playing just seven minutes, saddled with two fouls. Much of the rest had to do with Myles Rice scoring just 4 points on 2-of-5 shooting and a turnover in 19 minutes. Rice did have four assists, though, thanks to Jaylen Wells: The wing singlehandedly kept the Cougs in the game, scoring 18 of WSU’s 27 points in the first half.

Despite playing so poorly for the first 20 minutes, the Cougs did take a 1-point lead into the break.

The second half wasn’t much better up until the final minutes of the game. The Cougs struggled to put together any kind of consistent offense, which allowed Oregon State to hang around throughout the half. There was never a point where it felt like the Cougs were really at risk of losing a grip on the game, but it also felt like we were reaching “f— around, find out” territory when KC Ibekwe finished a post move to tie the game at 51 with about 5 minutes to go.

But a 5-0 run fueled by (who else?) Jones and Rice created a little separation, and then, after an OSU bucket, Andrej Jakimovski hit a pair of 3s, and the lead was 9 with 2:14 to play, and that was pretty much that.

In A Minute

• CougCenter recap

• Stats

• Line o’ the night: Jaylen Wells with 24 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals.

• One stat to tell the tale: On a night when their bread-and-butter wasn’t working — 11-of-32 on 2s (34%) — the Cougs made up for it by shooting 11-of-23 from 3 (48%).

Tourney Check

Last night’s win (combined with other results) slightly boosted the Cougs’ odds of securing an at-large bid to 75%, remaining in “last four byes” territory:

Highlights

Three Thoughts

1. A really nice win

Everyone knows Oregon State isn’t good. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you should believe that. But I will remind you — as Craig and I warned on the podcast this week — that Oregon State is dangerous, particularly at home.

The Cougs left Corvallis with a win. You know who didn’t? Arizona.

This was only OSU’s third loss at Gill Coliseum, with one very good win (Arizona) and a couple of other decent ones (Troy, Appalachian State) mixed in, not to mention the Beavers beating USC and ASU by double digits. It’s not unreasonable to say that they play like a top 75ish team at home, despite being ranked 163 by kenpom overall:

Additionally, Pac-12 home teams are winning 68% of their games, the fourth-best rate of any conference in the country, according to kenpom.com. Any road win in the Pac-12 is a good road win. They don’t all have to be pretty. They definitely aren’t all going to be pretty. But if you can get the result you need — particularly on road, and particularly on the heels of a wildly emotional overtime victory over a rival on Saturday — well … that’s really, really good.

This game had “trap” written all over it and the Cougs figured out a way to win. As my friend and partner Craig Powers said this morning, that was a “tourney team” win.

2. Jaylen Wells appreciation