Cougars flame out in second half against Oregon
Senior guard Ike Iroegbu drives to the basket in a game against the New Orleans Privateers on Dec. 3 at Beasley Coliseum. Iroegbu led the Cougars in scoring Saturday night against the Ducks with 12 points and snagged six rebounds.
January 9, 2017
After heading into the locker room, tied 37 at halftime, the WSU men’s basketball team faltered in the second half of Saturday’s contest against the 15th-ranked Oregon Ducks, falling 85-66.
Saturday’s showdown was a highly anticipated matchup, as both teams entered the game undefeated in conference play. Despite dropping its first conference game, WSU’s 2-1 start is its best mark since 2008.
WSU (9-6, 2-1) hung with Oregon (15-2, 4-0) the entire first half, leading for a longer duration of time than the Ducks in the first 20 minutes of the game.
UO junior forward Dillon Brooks, a preseason all-american, was ejected seven minutes into the game for a flagrant foul committed against WSU senior forward Josh Hawkinson. Brooks had already tallied seven points in the game and was halfway to his season average; his absence limited the Ducks’ ability to drive the ball inside against the Cougars.
“When (Brooks) left, I think it gave us a window to capitalize on and I think we did a good job capitalizing for the rest of the half,” Hawkinson said. “But we didn’t come out with the same intensity we had in the first.”
Oregon outscored WSU 48-29 in the second half. Senior forward Chris Boucher led Oregon’s second-half spurt, netting a career-high 29 points on 11-15 shooting, with six three pointers.
“(Boucher) is a matchup nightmare,” WSU Head Coach Ernie Kent said. “He will flat out light you up.”
The Cougars’ defense contained UO sophomore guard Tyler Dorsey in the game, holding him scoreless after he dropped a career-high 28 points in Oregon’s 83-61 win over Washington on Wednesday.
WSU suffered from a lack of offensive production from its bench, as the Ducks’ reserves outscored the Cougars’ 43-19. Four players scored in double figures for the Cougars, giving the team a balanced offensive attack, but none scored more than 12 points.
After playing three games in a seven-day stretch, WSU will enjoy a five-day break before traveling to the Bay Area to take on Stanford and California this weekend. The Cougars face the Cardinals at 8 p.m. on Thursday and head north to Berkeley for a 1 p.m. game against the Golden Bears on Saturday. Both games will air on the Pac-12 Network.
