The Washington State Cougars winning ways came to a halt on Saturday, falling to the Saint Mary’s Gaels 88-82. In their biggest test of the conference season so far, WSU (8-10, 3-2 in WCC) hung around with a very good Gaels team, getting within three points with 7:26 to go. Unfortunately, they ultimately couldn’t keep […]
The Washington State Cougars winning ways came to a halt on Saturday, falling to the Saint Mary’s Gaels 88-82.
In their biggest test of the conference season so far, WSU (8-10, 3-2 in WCC) hung around with a very good Gaels team, getting within three points with 7:26 to go. Unfortunately, they ultimately couldn’t keep up with the Gael offense. Specifically, with Mikey Lewis, Joshua Dent and Paulius Murakuskas who combined for 70 of the Gaels 88 points and all but two of the Gaels 38 second-half points.
The Gaels looked prime for a blowout win early on when they pushed their lead out to 18 with 2:58 remaining in the first half. The Cougar offense wasn’t doing much to inspire confidence either, with eight first-half turnovers and just 4-13 from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes. However, they were able to put together a rally in the final minutes to cut the deficit to a more manageable 12 points.
The Cougars rolled that late momentum from the end of the first half into the second. WSU kept pace with the Gaels and traded one bucket for two, slowly cutting into a once seemingly insurmountable lead. Emmanuel Ugbo closed the deficit to six with seven straight points for the Cougs. Ugbo passed the torch on to Ace Glass, who got three points the old-fashioned way with an and-one on a fast break. He tacked on two more free throws to get WSU within just three points. But the good times stopped there. Lewis splashed back-to-back threes to push the lead right back out to nine and erase all the progress WSU had just made. The Gaels kept WSU an arm’s length away for the remaining six and a half minutes to move to 5-0 in WCC play.
Despite the loss, this was still an encouraging result. For how bad WSU looked early on in the year, playing one of the WCC’s best teams close bodes well for how WSU should size up against the rest of the WCC.
The road doesn’t get much easier for the Cougars, however. They welcome in the rival Gonzaga Bulldogs on Thursday before traveling to play the San Francisco Dons next Sunday.
Category: General Sports
