The Washington State Cougars routed the Oregon Ducks on Senior Day in Pullman, 94-74.
WSU (18-13, 11-9 in Pac-12) put on a show on national television. A variety of high-flying dunks, a barrage of threes and great shooting overall helped the Cougars fly past Oregon (18-13, 11-9). The Ducks only led in the game for 20 seconds, leading 2-1 until 17:59 in the first half.
Oregon was without their leading scorer, Will Richardson, but it didn’t seem to really matter.
Noah Williams kicked off the Senior Day party by knocking down his first two three pointers, kicking off a 10-2 WSU run. Andrej Jakimovski got in on the fun a little later, one-upping Williams with three straight threes to push WSU’s lead to double digits. Oregon got a six-point run to pull back within four. With the Utah Jazz’s dunk team performing at halftime, Mouhammed Gueye gave fans a taste of what's to come by putting on a dunk performance of his own. Throwing down an alley-oop from Williams.
Watching this on repeat #GoCougs | #Pac12MBB pic.twitter.com/vHI7A1JUqM
— WSU Men's Basketball (@WSUCougarMBB) March 5, 2022
Not to be outdone, Efe Abogidi throw down a turnaround dunk from under the rim to put WSU up 11. Tyrell Roberts ended the near-perfect first half for WSU with a three-ball to give the Cougars a 14 point lead at the half.
Oregon got shots to fall but WSU answered every time, never allowing Oregon to go on a run to crawl back into the game. The Cougars led by at least 17 points over the last 17 and a half minutes. As the clock began to close in on triple zeros, the crowd began to chant “We want Burghardt!”. Finally, with 1:13 to go, Kyle Smith gave the 4,169 fans what they wanted.
And Will Burghardt, gave the crowd what they really wanted.
LET WILL COOK
— WSU Men's Basketball (@WSUCougarMBB) March 5, 2022
| CBS#GoCougs pic.twitter.com/zQL50AH0BL
WSU rode the momentum of the Burghardt splash for the final minute, cruising to a 20 point beatdown of the Ducks to secure the first conference winning record since the 2007-08 season.
The win guarantees WSU doesn’t fall any lower than the seventh seed in the Pac-12 tournament. If Oregon State can win in Seattle tonight, WSU will be the sixth seed. With an OSU loss, they will be the seventh seed. Regardless, the only two possible opponents are Utah and Cal who will be the 10th and 11th seeds depending on the results in Colorado vs Utah.
With the regular season wrapped up, the Cougars will travel to Las Vegas to play in the conference tournament and play at either 6 pm or 8:30 pm on Wednesday.