When it rains, it pours in Pullman. Washington State men’s basketball dropped its seventh game in the last eight Saturday against the Stanford Cardinal. After a back and forth overtime battle against California on Wednesday, the Cougars were unable to continue the intensity against Stanford.

The Stanford Cardinal (16-8, 7-5) defeated the Washington State Cougars (9-15, 2-10) 69-56 with their length and defense. Cardinal guard Anthony Brown scored a game-high 30 points; he was 8-of-10 from the field and made 10-of-11 free throws.

“I think what bothers us more than anything is teams with quickness and length because we need to be able to shoot shots,” Head Coach Ken Bone said. “We don’t have a lot of post presence down there, where guys can dump it down and score right near the hoop.”

The shooting woes continued for the Cougars, this time affecting two big time scorers. In his last three games, DaVonte Lacy averaged 31.7 points per game. Against Stanford he was held to 13 points, and in the first half he attempted one shot.

As for D.J. Shelton, he was 2-of-14 from the field and had trouble scoring with his back to the basket.

WSU continues to live and die by the three point shot. In this game they shot 29 times from behind the arc, but only converted on nine of those attempts. 

“This whole season I’ve never been one to demand the ball or anything,” Lacy said. “I just let my game come to me and tonight it just didn’t come to me as much as it has since I’ve been back.”

Que Johnson came on strong in the first half and finished leading the Cougars in points (14) and rebounds (8) against the Cardinal. Josh Hawkinson filled in while Shelton and Junior Longrus were in foul trouble and recorded five rebounds in 13 minutes of play.

Washington State loss the rebounding war 36-32, and Josh Huestis grabbed 11 boards for Stanford.

“Coach is always telling me to get more boards, he tells the whole team to get more boards, besides D.J., he’s a great rebounder,” Johnson said.

Stanford as a team made 18 field goals, two more than WSU, but a chunk of their points came from the free throw line. The Cardinal scored 27 points off of 36 free throw attempts. The Cougars only saw action from the charity stripe for 18 attempts.

Shelton said to limit those fouls, the team needs to play without their hands and keep players out of the post. He also said WSU needs to bring the extra help on when the team drives because that is when they are drawing the most fouls.

The men’s basketball team will face Oregon State Thursday and on Sunday finish their trip south of the boarder against Oregon.