Before tipoff against Oregon, DJ Rodman was celebrated as a four-year Coug and a senior. During his speech, he announced he is coming back for another year to the excitement of the entire crowd. It was great to take a moment to celebrate Rodman and all he has done for WSU, but there was still work to do.

“I’m coming back for one more year!” Rodman said.

It was great to take a moment to celebrate Rodman and all he has done for WSU, but there was still work to do.

WSU men’s basketball (13-15, 8-9 Pac-12) beat Oregon (15-13, 9-8 Pac-12) in Beasley Sunday by a score of 68-65.

The Ducks jumped out to an early lead, but a few forced turnovers and good offensive execution by the Cougs put them up by one with 17 minutes left in the half.

Will Richardson hit his second three at the 16:50 mark and put the Ducks back up. Another quick three by Jermaine Couisnard made the lead 5 for the Ducks with 16 left.

A gorgeous layup by Andrej Jakimovski cut the Cougar deficit to three. Jabe Mullins got a steal on the other end and drove to the rim but was fouled hard by Keeshawn Barthelemy.

Upon review, the foul was deemed a flagrant and the Cougs retained possession and got to shoot free throws Mullins split his shots and Mouhamed Gueye got a layup off the inbounds, tying the game. A few plays later Gueye put back a Jakimovski miss and the Cougs led with 12 left in the half.

The last time the Cougs played the Ducks they had a lot of trouble with Oregon’s full-court press defense. This time was no different, at least to start. Fortunately, this time they were managing to avoid turnovers.

It was a back-and-forth affair for the rest of the half, with Oregon and WSU both taking leads but neither going on serious runs.

At the end of the half, the Ducks led 30-27. Gueye led all scorers with 10 points and already had 8 rebounds, well on his way to yet another double-double.

Oregon had 10 turnovers but the Cougs had failed to properly capitalize on them, scoring only 5 points off of those mistakes.

The second half started the same way the first half ended. Both teams tried to pull ahead but every blow was met with a counter. Slowly it seemed as though the Cougs were starting to build up a lead, with a pair of threes from Rodman and some neat work inside by TJ Bamba getting the lead up to five with 13 minutes left in the game.

With 9:30 left, Mullins passed out to Jakimovski for a three which put the Cougs up 10. The lead was starting to feel real. Unfortunately, the Ducks met this lead with a few shots and some free throws and managed to pull the lead back down to 3. With five minutes left, the game was once again tied. Shortly after that tie, the Ducks took a 1-point lead.

Justin Powell came to the rescue with a tough three to give the Cougs a 2-point lead and met with a dunk on the other end to tie it up again with three minutes left in the game.

The Cougs had 180 seconds to make it happen. A quick layup by Gueye put the Cougs up, and Oregon missing on the other end got Bamba a chance at the three that he missed. Jakimovski pulled down a huge rebound in the paint after an Oregon missed layup, and the two teams went back and forth, trading a Cougar two for a Duck three.

Now with a 66–65 lead with a minute left, the Cougs needed to lock in. This was not their first time in a close game this season and Powell proved this when he drove to the rim and made a tough layup to put the Ducks out of the game-winner territory. On the other end, the Cougs locked up for the final 23 seconds and managed to cause a miss on the only shot attempt the Ducks managed in the final minute.

This game was a show of talent on both ends by the Cougs. The offense had some early struggles but by the end was producing consistently, and the defense was locking down the Ducks for most of the game as well. The leads were never huge, but the Cougs were decisively ahead for much of the game.

A big reason for this win was the early efficiency struggles were properly dealt with by the Cougs in the second half.

“We took really bad shots in the first half and we just wanted to clean it up [in the second half]” Rodman said after the game.

In the first half, they shot 18% from three, but the second half was a different story. The Cougs shot 58% after halftime, pulling the game percentage to 39. Properly addressing issues at halftime and coming out with solutions is the easiest way to turn around games and it is something WSU has struggled with a few times this season.

This was the hardest game left in terms of opponent record. From here on out, the Cougs just need to beat teams they have already seen and beaten this season.

The first of those is Stanford. Last time the Cougs beat Stanford by one point in a game that looked a lot like this one. That was at home, so it will probably not be an easy one now that they have to go face the Cardinal on their turf.

That game is at 8 p.m. Thursday. Fans can watch on Pac-12 Network.