Washington State Cougars

WSU falls to Sun Devils

Posted on 04 February 2010 by Jesse Baumgartner

Here’s a bit of the game story.

PULLMAN – Washington State tried hard Thursday night – there’s no question about that.

They scrapped their way back from a 19-point Arizona State lead early in the second half, and eventually got to within four points with plenty of time left.

But while the effort seemed to be there, certain factors are hard to overcome. The obvious roadblock for the Cougars was an inability to put the ball in the basket, and more specifically, the continued ineffectiveness of their main offensive threat.

With Klay Thompson unable to shake off his recent shooting woes and the whole Cougar team cold from long range (3 for 18 on 3s), WSU failed to overtake the Sun Devils during a 81-70 loss at Beasley Coliseum that dropped the home team to 4-6 in Pac-10 play.

It was the third straight conference defeat for Ken Bone’s squad, which has been struggling to find an offensive identity with its shooter on the fritz.

“There’s one area of the game that … it’s hard to get on guys about. And that’s shooting,” Bone said.

“If a guy doesn’t hustle or screen out … that’s one thing. But guys when they shoot, they try to make it.”

But try as he might, Thompson’s Pac-10 season became even more mystifying on Thursday.

After entering the conference season on a roll and averaging 25 points a game, he has since shot 35.7 percent from the field and 23.6 percent from behind the 3-point line during WSU’s 10 Pac-10 games.

And his final line against the Sun Devils (16-7, 6-4) was right on par with those surprising numbers. The sophomore started off cold, went 2-for-10 in the first half and hit a momentary hot spell in the second half before ending up 6-for-20 for the game and 2-for-10 beyond the arc for 20 points.