With less than two minutes remaining in the game, WSU redshirt junior guard Dexter Kernich-Drew sat on the bench with his hands on his face with a look of disappointment. Kernich-Drew’s reaction summed up the night for the WSU men’s basketball team, as it fell to rival Washington 72-49.

The last field goal the Cougars (9-19, 2-14) would make in this game would be with 13:04 left in the second half when junior guard DaVonte Lacy hit a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to nine points. The Cougars missed their next 11 shots in the half.

 “It’s an absolute shame,” men’s basketball Head Coach Ken Bone said after the loss. “We just talked about it in the locker room, it’s unbelievable.”

WSU finished the night shooting 31 percent from the field, and 17 percent from the three-point line.

“It’s tough to keep battling every possession, like we tell those guys, when they don’t taste a little bit of success,” Bone said. “That’s exactly what happened, at some point in this game, at some point in the Oregon game, at some point in a few games, we had a hard time getting baskets.”

The Washington (16-13, 8-8) guards attacked the Cougars early in the first half, which helped set the tempo for the entire game. Sophomore guard Andrew Andrews ended the night scoring 16 points, dishing four assists, and grabbing nine rebounds. His freshman backcourt mate Nigel Williams-Goss led the Huskies in scoring with 17 points, grabbing 12 rebounds and dishing out four assists.

“They did a nice job of attacking and getting to the free throw line and getting to the rim,” Bone said. “You know they made shots at the rim, they made free throws, That’s what good players do, they’re good players.”

Lacy led WSU in scoring with 25 points.

The Huskies attacked the Cougars all night at the rim, outscoring WSU by 14 points in the paint. UW hit 14 of 24 attempts from the charity stripe and out-rebounded WSU 39-27.

Washington held a slim advantage in fastbreak points, 8-6, but were the beneficiaries of a 23-6 edge in bench scoring. Blackwell led all bench players with 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field.

Bone and his team will play their final two games of the season next week at home, starting on Thursday with a matchup against the USC Trojans (10-18, 1-14) at 8 p.m.

“We were able to (knock USC off at home) last year, going through a time like now, and yet we went back home and won two games against USC, and UCLA and then did well in the conference tournament against the Huskies,” Bone said. “I’m hoping that obviously we can do the same thing this year.”