Two weeks in to the season, the WSU men’s basketball team is adjusting to the new hand checking rule.

WSU’s performance against Lamar Saturday was a big step for the Cougars, with regards to playing with the rule.

“I wouldn’t say we’re totally adjusted, we still got the new rule where the big man’s got to be there and the block charge rule where we still got to adjust,” WSU junior guard DaVonte Lacy said. “On the ball (defending) I feel like we did a better job than we did last week, and we just got to continue to improve.”

Officials called 33 total fouls in the Cougars’ 84-64 victory over Lamar, compared to the 55 fouls officials called in the game against Cal-State at Bakersfield two weeks ago.

“Like everyone else around the country, I was talking to the official during the game and he said ‘Hey your complaints are no different than anybody else’s, it’s nationwide, the rules have changed, and we all need to adapt,'” WSU men’s basketball Head Coach Ken Bone said.

Besides putting pressure on their opponent while defending the ball, the Cougars played a match-up zone for the majority of the night. Bone said the match-up zone needs to contribute to keeping players from penetrating the paint as easily as they are able to now with the new hand checking rules in place. 

“When something’s new you just go to keep doing it and doing it, then it becomes normal to you,” Lacy said. “We just got keep playing more in practice like it, and in the game we got to feel out the refs and see how they’re calling it.”

Defensively, the Cougars stole the ball eight times from Lamar and blocked three shots. The high pressure defense and match-up zone they played helped the WSU team edge out to a 16 point lead with 15 minutes left in the game. The Cardinals then played a full-court defense against the Cougars and cut the deficit to seven points with nine minutes left.

Bone said the match-up zone will need to contribute to preventing drives to the lane because of how the team appeared to struggle guarding straight up. 

“They were hard to guard,” he said. “They’re pretty quick. They did a nice job in the second half getting the ball to the high post and just attacking us off the bounce at the high post. That’s hard to defend.”

Redshirt junior guard Dexter Kernich-Drew gave everyone a flashback to ZZUMania with a 360 dunk on a fast break, which helped spark a late second half run for the Cougars and sealed the deal for the Cougars’ second win of the season.

Lacy led all scorers with 21 points. WSU redshirt freshman guard Que Johnson scored eight points off the bench for the Cougars.

“I feel like I’m getting more into the offense,” Johnson said.

Johnson sat out all of last season and dealt with a stress fracture before the 2013 season started. He is still in the process of making the adjustment of playing Division-I college basketball. 

“He took a step forward,” Bone said. “I can’t wait to when he’s able to show everybody what he can really do, but it’ll come.”