After a thrilling overtime win over Colorado in their regular season finale on senior night, the Cougars look to carry their momentum into a Pac-12 Tournament run.

WSU finished the regular season with a record of 13-17 overall and 7-11 in Pac-12 play. The Cougs are seeking their first tournament win since 2009 against Oregon. At that time, current Head Coach Ernie Kent was on the other end of that game as he was the coach of the Oregon Ducks. Their conference record was good enough to qualify as the number nine seed after winning the tiebreaker with their win against Colorado.

The Cougars will take on the California Golden Bears who are the eighth seed in the tournament. California (17-14, 7-11 Pac-12) finished its season losing five of its last six games. The two teams split their regular season match-ups with both teams winning on the road. Kent believes the challenge of playing a team for a third time comes down to the will to win for the teams.

“The third time it’s just about adjustments; it’s really no challenge,” Kent said. “This game being played at 12 noon, really about who brings the most energy, who’s awake, alert, ready to go playing an early game like that. Who really wants to be here, wants to play – it really comes down to things like that because they know us, we know them. There’s not a lot of major adjustments you can make… for the most part it’s about personnel and having our personnel locked in and ready to go.”

A key contributor will be the most recent winner of the most improved player in the Pac-12, sophomore forward Josh Hawkinson. Hawkinson said the team will be playing for the seniors as they look to make a run in the tournament.

“Coach Kent especially stressed to the team today (Tuesday) to finish the season out strong, especially for the seniors,” Hawkinson said. “We shouldn’t lose ever on senior day on their last game on our home court, so that was something that me and Ike (Iroegbu) definitely tried to do because we didn’t want it to end on a negative note, and so that’s pretty much been the way we’ve been trying to play and hopefully we can continue that into the tournament.”

Senior guard DaVonté Lacy has led the Cougars throughout the season averaging 17.2 points per game. The senior hit the game-tying shot to force overtime against Colorado and gave WSU momentum into their overtime win last Saturday on senior night. Lacy will be making his final appearance in the Pac-12 tournament and is focused on doing whatever it takes to keep the magic going.

“No one wants to go home at this time especially us,” Lacy said. “I know for a fact, me, I really don’t want to go home, I want to stay here until the championship game. And I’m gonna try to work my hardest to do that, so if it comes to a close game then I guess we’re going to have to win a close game.”

The Cougars will need to count on the continued great play of sophomore point guard Ike Iroegbu who had one of his best performances of his young career last Saturday scoring 18 points and dishing out 11 assists in the win. In the loss against Utah, Iroegbu had seven assists and six points and over the course of his past two games has only four turnovers to his 18 assists.

When the two teams met for the second time in Pullman, junior guard Tyrone Wallace torched the Cougars for 26 points on 10-of-17 shooting. Wallace dominated the Cougars with his ability to drive to the basket and finish at the rim. Kent said the team must do a better job at limiting Wallace offensively.

“He’s one of many guards that really just torched us this year,” Kent said. “For us to win this game and have any success in this tournament we’ve got to do a better job defensively on anybody’s premier guard and that’s who he (Wallace) is and the biggest thing with him is we’ve gotta keep him from getting in the lane so much.”

 The Cougars will battle the Golden Bears for an opportunity to take on number one seed Arizona Thursday afternoon. The game will be aired at noon tomorrow on the Pac-12 Networks.