The WSU men’s basketball team knew they were in for a challenge heading into last night’s home game against the No. 13/12 Gonzaga Bulldogs. The Cougars were up for the challenge and gave it their all against the Bulldogs. Yet, Gonzaga proved why they are the No. 12 ranked team in the country in a 69-60 win over the Cougars.

Early on in the ball game the Cougars jumped out to a 6-2 lead over the Bulldogs which ignited the 8, 209 fans on hand at Beasley Coliseum. However, the Bulldogs regained the momentum back thanks to their redshirt junior forward Kyle Wiltjer.

The 6-10, 248 pound Gonzaga forward hit his first 3-pointer of the game from beyond NBA range to cut the score to 6-5 with 16:44 remaining in the first half. Wiltjer would continue to hit shot after shot in the half. He finished the first half with 22 points on 8 of 15 shots from the field.

“He put on in my opinion just a pro performance,” WSU men’s basketball Head Coach Ernie Kent said. “We didn’t have anything in our scouting report that he was going to shoot a 40 foot three and hit the bottom of the net so we had to make some adjustments.”

Those adjustments on Wiltjer came primarily in the second half where the Gonzaga forward was held in check to two points and going 0 of 3 from the field in the half. WSU senior forward Junior Longrus played a vital role in limiting Wiltjer in the second half by making sure the former Kentucky transfer could not get an open shot off.

“We gave up 20 points to him in the second half and I knew a lot of that was my fault and just tried to make up for that in the second half,” Longrus said.

Quieting Wiltjer in the second half allowed the Cougars get back in the game. WSU redshirt junior guard Que Johnson also kept the Cougars alive by hitting 8 of 14 from the field and finishing with a season high of 18 points.

“I was hitting shots in the first half and Ike and Charles did a good job of finding me on the curls, finding me when I flare,” Johnson said. “Josh and Junior did a good of setting picks for me.”

Kent was pleased with how Johnson played in the game.

“Que was really good on the offensive end and I think you’re starting to see flashes of what everybody thought could do,” Kent added. “He’s in better shape this year, in attack mode a lot more this year. If he can just continue to give the effort. He has the talent, it’s all about the effort and playing hard. When he does that you kind of see what kind of player he is because we rode him a lot in the second half. Called his number and he produced pretty much every time for us.”

The Cougars would come as close as seven points to the Bulldogs with 4:31 remaining the game, but in the end Gonzaga would kept its composure and come away with the win in Pullman.

“It felt like we got really close,” WSU junior guard Ike Iroegbu said. “Gonzaga’s a good team, they know how to handle themselves in that moment of the game, but we felt like we were right there, we just didn’t execute like we should have, and we’ll learn from it.”

The Cougars’ next game will be this Sunday against Portland State at 1:00 p.m. in Beasley Coliseum.