VolQuest.com - Cardinal Comeback Nicks Cougs

February 11, 2010

CougZone News Services
WazzuWatch.com

The Washington State University men's hoop team did the exact same thing they did the first time they met the Stanford Cardinal - built a big first half lead - only this time the Cougars could not make their big lead hold up in the second half and Stanford came all the way back from an 18-point deficit to nip the Cougars, 60-58 in Palo Alto. With the loss, the Cougars fall to 15-9 overall and 5-7 in the Pac-10.

As in their first match-up with Stanford, Wazzu came out of the gate strong, building a nine-point lead, 15-6, after the first nine minutes. The Cardinal came back to close the gap to six at 21-15, but the Cougars reeled off a 12-0 run to take their largest lead of the game at 33-15 with just under two minutes to play in the half and took a 33-18 lead into the locker room. Sophomore forward DeAngelo Casto led the Cougars in the first half with nine points on four-of-five shooting.

Wazzu sophomore guard Klay Thompson opened the second half right where the Cougars left off and drilled a trey to equal Wazzu's largest lead but Stanford responded with five consecutive points to cut the lead to 13 before Thompson canned another bucket and Wazzu held a 38-24 lead with 16:46 remaining in the game. Sophomore guard Michael Harthun hit back-to-back buckets with a timeout sandwiched between and gave Wazzu another r18-point lead at 42-24 with 15:44 left in the game. The Cougars then went scoreless for the next four minutes, but the drought also affected Stanford, which scored only two points in the time span. Sophomore Marcus Capers finally broke through for Wazzu and the Cougars were up 44-29 with 11:07 left in the game

Once again, the Cougars went into a two-minute scoring slump and this time, Stanford took advantage with a 7-0 scoring run that cut the lead to seven points at 44-36 with 9:32 remaining in the game but Thompson stopped the run with a lay-up and conversion of a free throw attempt to give the Cougars a 47-36 lead. The Cardinal refused to go away and cut the Cougars' lead to eight at 49-41 with 7:45 remaining but Thompson hit a big trey moments later to put the lead back up to 11 for Wazzu at 52-41.

But Stanford came storming back with a 14-0 run to take a 55-52 lead with 1:52 remaining in the game. Casto finally hit a pair of free throws to stop the Stanford surge and the Cardinal led 55-54. Stanford added their own pair of free throws to take a 57-54 lead. Casto missed a free throw and freshman Xavier Thames missed a potential game-tying three-pointer but senior Nikola Koprivica hit a bucket that left Stanford up 57-56 with 24.1 seconds left in the game. After the Cardinal hit a free throw to make it 58-56, Casto dunked for a tie game at 58-all. Stanford scored to make it 60-58 with 4.6 seconds remaining and Moore missing a trey to win it at the end.

Thompson and Casto were the only Cougars in double digits in scoring with Thompson racking up 20 points and Casto adding 15 points.

NOTES:

- With the victory, Stanford remains undefeated at home [5-0] in Pac-10 play.

- Harthun scored a career-high six points.

Wazzu will continue Pac-10 conference play on Saturday, February 13 when they will face California at 1 PM in Berkeley

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