Mouhamed Gueye did not miss a single shot from the field and the Cougars made their first eight threes to beat Oregon State, 80—62.

Jack Wilson checked into this game twice, with the Cougs up both times. That has to be a good sign.

WSU men’s basketball (12-15, 7-9 Pac-12) beat OSU (10-17, 4-12 Pac-12) 80-62 in Beasley on Thursday. The Cougs led by double digits for 34 minutes of this game.

Offensively, this one started fast for the Cougs. Oregon State had no answer as the first 2:20 consisted of 11 points for Wazzu and no points for the Beavers. Threes from Andrej Jakimovski, DJ Rodman and Justin Powell put the Cougs way up.

The Beavers managed a 10-3 run to get it within four, but Rodman hit another three and TJ Bamba got a steal into a dunk that put the Cougs back up 9. Jakimovski hit another three as well and the lead was a dozen with 13 minutes left in the half.

The precision from outside by the Cougs was what made a huge early lead possible. The Cougs started the game with a perfect eight makes on as many attempts —the Cougs were shooting 100% from outside with a quarter of the game gone.

Unfortunately, Jabe Mullins missed the first three for the Cougs on what would have been a buzzer-beater. You can not blame him, the shot was a total prayer, but it still put a bit of a damper on the crowd.

Fortunately, the Cougs did not slow down at any point in the first half, so even as the percentages fell to just extraordinary instead of perfect, they still managed to hold a big lead.

At half time the score was 44-30, Cougs up. It had not gotten close at any point besides that brief four-point scrape. The Cougs were shooting above 63% from both the field and three-point range and had eight assists to the Beavers one.

The lead scorer for WSU was  Gueye with 14. He had not missed a shot, 6-for-6 from the field and 1-for-1 from three. Jordan Pope led the Beavers in scoring with 7.

The second half began with steady scoring by both sides. The Beavers kept the pressure up, but the Cougs were a dam on defense and held them back enough to maintain a double-digit lead despite the consistent onslaught by OSU.

With just over nine minutes left in the game, the lead was 21. The Beavers had run out of juice and the Cougs had held strong.

The rest of the game consisted of small runs where the Beavers seemed like they might prevent a blowout, but it was not to be. Consistently when the lead started to shrink it was met with some sort of crazy tear by the Cougs to take it back.

It can be challenging for a Coug fan to feel comfortable with the lead. The moment of relief where the game felt truly sealed came as the lead started to creep below 20 with just over three minutes left. It would take an all-time comeback by the Beavers to even make it a game, but there is no place where that feels more possible than Pullman.

Fortunately, it was not to be. Rodman drove through traffic and made a tough up-and-under to put the lead at 17. Dylan Darling followed that up by taking the ball all the way down the floor in transition, spinning into the paint and drawing an and-1 on a contested layup. He hit the free throw and the lead was 20 again. At that point, it felt truly over.

The final score was 80-62. Gueye finished with 21 points, shooting a perfect 9 for 9 from the field. He was the first Coug to go 9-of-9 or better since Aron Baynes did it three times in the 2007-08 season. *reverse say “since Aron Baynes in the 2007-08 season doing it three times-MF

Some other Cougs that had big games were Rodman and Jakimovski who had four made threes *confusing each and scored 18 and 13 respectively. Bamba also had a good game, scoring 14 and hitting two threes for 100% shooting from outside.

The Cougs completely shut down OSU’s primary scorers, leading to the leading Beavers being bench guys. Tyler Bilodeau led the team while tying his career-high with 18 and Michael Rataj was the next leader with 11. These freshmen got most of their experience once the game was completely out of control for the Beavers.

There is no margin for error at this point. If the Cougs want to make any postseason tournament they need to win out. The remaining games are all winnable and the Cougs are a team that could potentially make a big run in the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas.

The next game they need to win is against Oregon at 4 p.m. Sunday in Beasley Coliseum. Fans can watch on FS1. It will be senior night as the Cougs will honor DJ Rodman and Jack Wilson.