It was never realistic to believe the Cougars would go undefeated at home this season but in a game reminiscent of last fall’s loss to Wyoming in football, an early upset to Pacific was not the way WSU thought they would lose that undefeated mark in Beasley.
WSU hosts No. 16 Gonzaga in February and also still has to host a pair of top-50 teams in Saint Mary’s and Santa Clara, so they were likely bound to lose eventually. Still, losing to a consensus bottom-100 team in the country at home was at the very least, disappointing.
Leading up to the game David Riley had stressed the team’s focus on Pacific, and was adamant that they would not be looking ahead to Gonzaga. Nate Calmese said the team was not allowed to say the word ‘Gonzaga’ until after the final buzzer against Pacific.
Yet for whatever reason, the Cougs came out slow against Pacific, and in what was a breakdown of defense, allowed relatively unknown guard Lamar Washington to drop forty points, a career-high. WSU found themselves in an early hole and by halftime, they trailed by ten, down 48-38.
Despite losing their best player, Elias Ralph, within the first two minutes of the game, the Pacific Tigers were relentless in the paint. They cut through the Cougars man defense and hit layup after layup. Instead of forcing the Tigers to shoot, the Wazzu left Washington open in the key on nearly every possession in the first half, giving the Tigers easy points.
The Cougars did eventually come back, forcing a tie game. However, with Ethan Price sore and cramping, the Cougs wanted to end it. Calmese took a shot as the buzzer sounded, and missed. The game headed to overtime, tied at 84-84.
In overtime, it looked like the Cougars had all the momentum, and would be able to ride it to a win. With just over a minute to go, they led 93-88, and seemed like they had control. But a Washington layup cut the lead to three, and a missed three off the hands of Calmese gave the ball back to the Tigers. Tomas Thrastarson fouled Washington, who made both his free throws. Suddenly it was 93-92.
The Tigers fouled Calmese with eight seconds to play and left it up to fate. As fate would have it, Calmese missed the first free-throw. He made the second, but the Cougs gave the ball back to the Tigers down two, with a chance to tie or win it.
Washington called game, sinking a buzzer-beating three-pointer. It was the game of his life; the junior, who transferred to Pacific after spending the past two seasons as a backup at Texas Tech, had never scored 20 points in a game before. Against the Cougars, he topped 40.
“We didn’t come out with the toughness to win a division one game,” said head coach David Riley after the game.
He stressed that the Cougars need to focus on locking down star players.
“This is two games in a row we’ve let a really good player get rhythm,” said Riley. “We were a step behind…he got going, he’s a good player and we didn’t execute the game plan.”
LeJuan Watts, who was often tasked to guard Washington, broke down some of the defensive issues that led to his big game.
“He was too comfortable on our ball screens,” said Watts. “Too comfortable too early, and then him getting hot with the floaters and then the pump fakes were flying by.”
Price, despite missing time in the second half and overtime due to cramps, led the team with a new WSU career-high 28 points. He led the charge as the Cougars came back from a ten-point deficit in the second half.
“We’ll probably sit down and watch a lot of film tomorrow and learn from it,” said Price. “It’s cool making up ground, but if we lose the game I don’t really care.”
