WSU Vs. Arizona: Wildcats Smack Around Cougs, 85-61
by Craig Powers on Jan 26, 2012 10:06 PM PST
in 2011-2012 WSU Basketball News
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PrintThe Arizona Wildcats used hot three-point shooting and stifling defense to bury Washington State in a blowout win Thursday night. UA found themselves open on the perimeter all evening, and made WSU pay time and time again. The Wildcats finished 15-27 from the three-point line.
The Cougs lost more than just the game as Faisal Aden went to the ground without contact on a fastbreak midway through the first half. Aden injured his knee and it appeared to be serious. It would be surprising if he came back to play at any point the rest of the year. A shame, as he was having the best stretch of basketball in his Cougar career. EDIT: Aden's injury has been diagnosed as a Sprained MCL (per Caple).
Arizona's guards abused their Washington State counterparts on both ends of the floor. On offense they were able to create dribble penetration consistently, forcing help off three-point shooters. On defense they were able to get into the faces of Reggie Moore, DaVonte Lacy, and Aden, forcing them into a number of poor decisions and weak passes.
Kyle Fogg got things rolling for the WIldcats in the first half and finished with 20 points on 8-13 shooting. Solomon Hill finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds, while Brendon Lavender came off the bench to knock down four threes and chip in 14 points.
Brock Motum led WSU with 18 points and 10 rebounds. He did most of his damage at the line, going 10-10 on free throws. Arizona did their best to frustrate Brock and were physical with him all night long. In the end, it worked out pretty well as Motum was just 4-12 from the field and turned the ball over four times.
No other Cougar finished in double figures as the team posted an abysmal 39 eFG%. The Cougs also turned the ball over on 23% of their possessions on the way to just 0.88 points per possession.
WSU will look to try and bounce back against Arizona State on Saturday at 2pm Pacific Time.
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Kind of nice that losses only come in quantities of 1
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
Once again...
My Wazzu brothas and sistas, win-a or lose-a I said-a – AH-SAY WHO?!?!
Look, I understand you're trying to start the Cougs version of WHO DEY
but, relax, man.
by Kyle Rancourt on Jan 27, 2012 11:25 AM PST up reply actions 2 recs
WAZZU!
Hard to get an answer at 2am after a bad loss. Luckily I am still up at 6am working on my senior design project, which has used up way too much of my free time due to the insane work load that the professor expects from us (my group).
Bounce-back Saturday
Better to lay an egg against Arizona (a game we had little chance of winning) than ASU. Hopefully we’ll come out firing Saturday and correct our offensive inefficiency problems from last night.
I see this as a similar scenario to the Oregon & Oregon State games in Spokane opening weekend.
by WSU99-08 on Jan 27, 2012 6:54 AM PST reply actions 1 recs
I thought for sure UA had a bunch of offensive rebounds.
I swear every time we needed a stop they got an offensive rebound. I was shocked to see they only had 9 and we had 7. It felt like they had 20. I was going to blame Craig about the offensive rebounding, but they didn’t kill us on that.
It is hard to beat a team when they shoot 57.7% from 3 and 50.8% on 2s. That made up for shooting 50% from the line. What a ugly game. I felt like we got out-athleted.
CougCenter OG since 9/2/2008 | @TheSoCalCoug
I think those high shooting percentages might explain the parity in offensive reboundng
They did have a lot to pull off the glass at the offensive end. And yeah we were totally out athleted. Bone mentioned in his postgame how they were quicker at every single position.
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
That why we look at offensive rebounding percentage.
The shooting percentages don’t affect that like rebounding margin. In the end Arizona grabbed 24% of offensive rebounds, well below their average.
They were just about at their usual 31% when the scrubs came in the last few minutes. Considering the national average is 32% and the Cougs usually give up 33%, I’d say rebounding was pretty low on the list of things that killed WSU yesterday.
CougCenter In Reid We Trust, Twitter!
by Craig Powers on Jan 27, 2012 11:20 AM PST up reply actions
Thanks, I am still in my old habits of reading the basic box scores
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
I must break you.
But seriously, OR% is easy to calculate from looking at a basic boxscore. It is just OR/(OR+other team DR).
CougCenter In Reid We Trust, Twitter!
by Craig Powers on Jan 27, 2012 11:30 AM PST up reply actions 2 recs
Well the boxscore didn't lie
It was probably that old “It seemed to me” factor.
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
I've been thinking a lot about this
Because if it seemed like they got a ton of offensive rebounds, I’m wondering if they did — on shots. Look at how many free throws they missed. That’s going to artificially deflate offensive rebounding percentage.
I’m thinking about looking into the play by play to see if there’s any validity to this theory.
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 27, 2012 11:58 AM PST up reply actions
Maybe check two things
Because, like I said above, there was a “seemed” factor to it. It didn’t seem even at all. It could be a deflated stat like you mention. I would also like to see what the percentagess were early in the game versus first half. I know vs, Cal and Stanford, we started off with early rebound deficit and closed it as the game went along. I know when the game was relatiively close, it didn’t “seem” like we were getting anything off the glass. I wonder if that was the case and things didn’t even out more in garbage time.
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
Just checked.
8 misses, two of which resulted in offensive rebounds for Arizona. Meaning OR% without free throws is 23%, so Arizona actually rebounded slightly better off of free throws.
If people have already decided that this is a bad rebounding team, they are going to be all that more frustrated by each individual rebound. This leads them to “feel” like the team is doing poor on the glass.
Probably didn’t help that I said Arizona doesn’t try hard for offensive boards in the preview. Maybe people think that means they never get offensive rebounds? Even bad teams still grab a quarter of their own misses…offensive rebounds happen.
CougCenter In Reid We Trust, Twitter!
by Craig Powers on Jan 27, 2012 12:18 PM PST up reply actions
Disregard this comment.
ESPN stats were wrong.
CougCenter In Reid We Trust, Twitter!
by Craig Powers on Jan 27, 2012 12:51 PM PST up reply actions
Except for the play-by-play, that came from WSU.
CougCenter In Reid We Trust, Twitter!
by Craig Powers on Jan 27, 2012 12:51 PM PST up reply actions
Offensive Tips don't count as Rebounds Correct?
Because there were quite a few times they were just tipping the ball back up again and again and again. Then we would just foul them and let them shoot free throws..
I believe it can count as a rebound if it is controlled enough to be a shot attempt.
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 27, 2012 10:39 PM PST up reply actions
Anything can count, it really depends on the official scorer.
What counts differs greatly from school to school, there are guidelines but they are not always followed. Some schools are notorious for gifting their big rebounder extra boards.
by Mark Sandritter on Jan 27, 2012 10:53 PM PST up reply actions
So weird -- that never happens anywhere else
Definitely not when the hometown hitter sends a shot that the 3B probably should have fielded but didn’t but it was sorta hard so the hitter gets a hit.
9 rebounds when you make half of em is a lot
Especially since it was more than our rebound amount and our shot percentage was NOT good.
by Samsinite on Jan 27, 2012 12:46 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Just checked the WSU official boxscore (was using ESPN before)/
Looks like Zona had 12 O-boards, not 9. 12/35, so about 34%. That’s a lot worse than the 24% I got from ESPN stats.
CougCenter In Reid We Trust, Twitter!
by Craig Powers on Jan 27, 2012 12:50 PM PST up reply actions
Thanks FOUR letter network.
Sheesh. Where are they getting their stats? UCLA?
CougCenter OG since 9/2/2008 | @TheSoCalCoug
This one I can actually explain.
The ESPN boxscore doesn’t include rebounds credited as team rebounds. So if a ball bounces off the rim and out of bounds it isn’t credited to any individual player and is instead a team rebound.
Now, the fact the ESPN box doesn’t include team rebounds in the totals is in fact really stupid, but that is why the numbers differ.
by Mark Sandritter on Jan 27, 2012 1:26 PM PST up reply actions
I don't trust those ESPN types.
CougCenter In Reid We Trust, Twitter!
by Craig Powers on Jan 27, 2012 1:33 PM PST up reply actions
Bunch of Pollyanna Kool-Aid drinkers.
All of them.
by Mark Sandritter on Jan 27, 2012 1:46 PM PST up reply actions 2 recs
I would have just felt better if you would have blamed it on BN.
CougCenter OG since 9/2/2008 | @TheSoCalCoug
by SoCalCoug on Jan 27, 2012 4:03 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
I don't trust anyone who has ever worked for ESPN, either.
by Kyle Rancourt on Jan 27, 2012 5:44 PM PST up reply actions 2 recs
Hey watch it.
It was one time man, I was a kid, give me a break.
by Mark Sandritter on Jan 28, 2012 1:32 AM PST up reply actions
we did get "out-athleted"
Bone’s post=game (why do I do this to myself?) he said , “they are so much quicker than us at every position.’” Um…who is responsible for recruiting players? He makes it sound like he’s just working with the hand he was dealt. I hate this team’s weak zone defense (which makes it even harder to rebound out of)., lazy transition defense, poor rebounding , a point guard who just dribbles around., and 2/5 of the starting lineup averaging, what, 2 points a game? . We’ve had basically no injuries this year. Now we’ll be crying about losing Aden. We were spoiled watching Bennett teams who actually valued the basketball. ASU is awful, but we managed to lose at ASU last year. Anything is possible with this team. They are basically unwatchable.
When this season is over we will lose the last of the Bennett players,
and Bone’s players will have gained a valuable year of experience. He also has a pretty solid recruiting class coming in this season.
Attractive, Intelligent, Smart A**
by Neil Vincent Roberts on Jan 27, 2012 8:52 AM PST up reply actions
the facts
I thought he was just stating the facts, not making excuses. They were far more athletic than we were and much quicker. Unfortunately, the 2-3 match-up is our best defense. We are a below average team in a below average league. We can beat most Pac 12 teams, but the margin of error is way slim. We also can lose to any Pac 12 team (see Utah). As much as I like guys like Abe, Charlie, Patrick, and Marcus, they aren’t really D-1 players, or at best they should be deep on the bench (like Patrick). Abe can’t shoot well or rebound well. Charlie is not a strong rebounder or offensive player. Patrick is slow of foot and not strong enough. Marcus can’t drive or shoot. Even Reggie, who is arguably our 2nd best player, is really up and down defensively and offensively. We may have the nicest group of players in the Pac, but there’s no sportsmanship award. Our incoming class is pretty athletic. Hopefully the next couple of years things will turn. I don’t always understand Bone’s decisions, but what do I know. I haven’t given up on him yet. He’s well respected in the coaching fraternity and a solid guy.
bpcoug53's standard argument
Attractive, Intelligent, Smart A**
by Neil Vincent Roberts on Jan 27, 2012 10:51 AM PST up reply actions
Notice on the comment history in the profile....
that comments are only made after losses and that there is absolute silence after wins.
Now excuse me while I go invent bphusky53 and introduce him The Dawg Pound. Comment #1: Romar’s undisciplined approach to offense.
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
Don't worry, there are enough of those commentors in the UW blogsphere already.
I think you’d just be wasting your time.
If you really want to troll UW fans you should comment about how great Romar’s offensive philosophies and inbounds plays are.
by UW11Bowdown on Jan 27, 2012 11:17 AM PST up reply actions
Ok thanks. And with Nick Holt gone, what would be a good point of attack on Sark?
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
Haha, Sark is invulnerable right now.
Just like there is no valid criticism of Mike Leach right now, firing Holt gave Sark a near 100% approval rating.
by UW11Bowdown on Jan 27, 2012 12:33 PM PST up reply actions
The tired, worn out, senseless argument that I replied to in my post
You can pretty much go back to any basketball post and see where someone (often this person) injects the conversation with this garbage. I don’t know why somebody who would lable a team that just beat two of the top teams in the conference and outplayed another of the conferences top teams for 30 minutes to be unwatchable.
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
what?
you don’t value the basketball copy \ paste posting approach?
It is not the size of the gift that demonstrate support…it’s the action of joining.
by woolybugger on Jan 27, 2012 11:18 AM PST up reply actions
It's like an Oscar the Grouch pull string doll
Around these parts, a man could get hurt for wearing purple.
by PullManiac on Jan 27, 2012 11:34 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
Good luck Faisal
Faisal’s knee bend looked nasty. I hear the injury is more common to soccer and hockey players, but I’ve never seen a soccer player with knees as knobby as Faisal’s and acutally never seen a hockey players knees. I actually think Faisal’s knobby knees really just couldn’t keep up with his new drive. His heart was there and his body just couldn’t do it. Hope to see him play again soon. Go Cougs !
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