WSU rewind: In season-ending loss to Iowa State, Cougs could have extended lead earlier

Mar. 24—PULLMAN — The Washington State Cougars may have let their NCAA Tournament slip away, just when they were playing their best.

The Cougars bowed out of the Big Dance in the second round Saturday with a 67-56 loss to second-seeded Iowa State.

It was early in the game, and WSU was playing some of its best defense of the season. ISU didn't register its first made shot until seven minutes of game time passed.

The Cyclones made just one of their first 13 shots, a stretch that included two turnovers, the Cougs' defense operating at some of its highest levels all season.

The problem for WSU: Even in those first 10 minutes, when they were getting stops left and right, the Cougs couldn't extend their lead on offense. Their largest lead came when guard Myles Rice escaped pressure to find senior wing Andrej Jakimovski for a wing 3-pointer, good for a 14-6 advantage — but an eight-point cushion isn't much against an Iowa State team that has looked like a national championship team all season long.

The Cyclones made the Cougars pay, following with an 11-2 burst to take a 17-16 lead.

WSU was never quite out of it, but in hindsight, the guys in crimson could have given themselves a better chance to win by ballooning their lead when the opportunity surfaced.

"I think we did a good job of handling the pressure, playing really unselfish, finding me," said WSU wing Jaylen Wells, who posted a team-best 20 points. "I just think we really prepared well. Honestly, we knew that they were going to stay off the baseline, drive the baseline. So you know that trap is coming."

The Cougs' offensive woes were the story of the end of their season. After their best stretch of the year, an eight-game win streak that concluded with a road win over then-No. 4 Arizona, their offense took a turn for the worse. They took a bad road loss to Arizona State, then used a flurry of late-game shotmaking to clip USC and UCLA in a weekend sweep.

Then, in WSU's loss to Washington, the Cougars made just 4 of 24 3-pointers and lost 12 turnovers. They improved a game later, sinking 7 of 22 from deep to beat Stanford in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals, but across their final three games of the season — a loss to Colorado in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals, a win over Drake in the NCAA Tournament opening round and Saturday's game — they were only 16 for 56 from 3 (29%) with 45 turnovers (15 per game).

WSU's offense may not have been predictable, but opposing teams found some of the same ways to slow it. The Cyclones sent an instant double team at forward Isaac Jones, who posted eight points on five shots in the loss, and bet the Cougars couldn't make them pay from the perimeter.

They won that bet going away.

"I think it was more what we did upping our aggressiveness on the defensive end," ISU forward Tre King said. "In the first half, we were a little tentative, and we knew they like to play out of the skip. And I think early in the game, we were too worried about that and not focused on what we do well, which is turning people over.

"So in the second half, we regrouped and talked about how we only forced five turnovers and how that's unacceptable to us and how we were going to, quite frankly, just triple it, like we normally do. So credit to our guys on maintaining the focus and really upping the aggressiveness especially in the ball screens and forcing the big turnovers in key moments."

In the end, the Cougs' inability to take care of the ball cost them their season. They sailed a couple passes out of bounds.

On a couple occasions, they just lost it. In Pac-12 play, they didn't always run into teams that could capitalize. In Iowa State, WSU encountered a team that feasts on those kinds of mistakes, live-ball turnovers that swing the momentum — especially amid such a Cyclone-heavy crowd like Saturday's.

But for WSU, now the focus shifts toward the future. Will coach Kyle Smith stay? What about stars like Wells and Rice?

Guard Joseph Yesufu, who missed nearly the entire year with an injury, confirmed to The Spokesman-Review he plans to use his medical redshirt to return to Washington State.

Otherwise, a lot remains unknown for the Cougars. The next few days should reveal a lot about the direction their program is headed.