No defense, no victory for Cougars in loss to Utah

Following Wednesday’s practice, Washington State coach Ernie Kent declared the Cougars had to demonstrate more toughness on defense, even in the absence of shot-blocking specialist Valentine Izundu, sidelined with an injury.

He’ll have to wait one more game to find out if the Cougars are capable of doing exactly that.

Yielding 90 or more points for the fourth time against six Pac-12 opponents, Washington State fell behind by double digits early and never caught up in a 92-71 loss to Utah Thursday night at Beasley Coliseum.

WSU’s fourth straight loss dropped the Cougars to 9-9 overall, 1-5 in the Pac-12.

Leaky defense all over the court by the Cougars was a major contributor to the loss. Jordan Loveridge (22 points) and Brandon Taylor (21) of Utah combined to drain 10-of-16 three-point attempts from beyond the arc while the Utes outscored the Cougars, 42-24, in the paint.

Inside or outside, Utah encountered minimal resistance the woeful Washington State defense.

“We’ve given the blueprint to people and not being able to defend teams is concerning to me,” Kent told the Washington State IMG Network after the game, which was played in front of a crowd of 2,717 fans in Pullman.

“Our marketing team and the students did a fantastic job in showing up. It was the best crowd we have had here since Gonzaga. We let them down. The fan support was here, the student support was here and there was energy in the building from the beginning of the game, but we didn’t live up to our part in terms of our effort on the defensive end.”

Utah shot 55.6 percent (35-63), including 50 percent (11-22) from 3-point range, and sank 11-of-12 free throws. The 11 3-pointers by the Utes represented a season high for a WSU opponent. After struggling in the first half offensively, WSU made 55.2 percent (16-29) of its shots in the second, but it was a classic case of too little, too late.

“Offensively, we played better in the second half,” Kent said. “We were able to shoot it and get up and down. But the hole we had dug was so big that we basically ended up trading buckets in the second half. We could never make up the deficit because we couldn’t get a string of stops together on the defensive end of the floor.”

Thirteen Washington State turnovers were converted into 22 points by the Utes, which led for over 39 minutes in the contest. The Cougars never led.

Josh Hawkinson (6-7 FG) and Que Johnson (6-10) led WSU with 16 points apiece, and Charles Callison added 12. Hawkinson grabbed eight rebounds, falling short of a double-double for the second straight game after posting 11 straight games of 10+ point and 10+ rebounds.

Utah (14-5, 3-3 Pac-12) have won two in a row and three of four, evening their conference record after starting 0-2 in league play. Jacob Poeltl had 14 points and Lorenzo Bonam 13 for Utah.

"Loveridge and Taylor played like seniors and just played lights-out basketball with their speed, their quickness, their ball movement and more importantly their confidence," Kent added. "We just had no answers for them on the defensive end of the floor."

The Utes, who had not scored more than 59 points in the previous four games, scored 43 in the first half alone against WSU. The Cougars trailed 43-28 at intermission, the third consecutive game in which WSU trailed by 15 points at the half.

“We have to get this defensive thing figured out,” Kent insisted. “We’ve harped on it for the last four or five games. We cannot give up the points we are giving up because we can’t score at a 90-point clip per game. We are giving up some layups. We can talk all we want about not having Valentine, but that is not Valentine when you’re driven from one wing right to the bucket. That is about grit, determination.

“This team has been taught defense. We work on it every day. They understand rotations. There is absolutely no excuse for the poor effort we gave this crowd tonight on the defensive end of the floor. We've got to play a lot harder and a lot smarter than we did tonight.”

The Cougars committed five turnovers in the first 7-1/2 minutes and were outscored 13-0 in points off turnovers in the opening half. Utah attacked the basket with minimal resistance against a WSU squad that played without Izundu (foot) for the fourth straight game.

Poeltl, Utah's leading scorer and rebounder, was limited in the first half by foul trouble. The 7-foot sophomore from Austria is projected as a consensus top-10 pick in the 2016 NBA draft if he elects to leave school.

The Cougars never led in a frustrating first half that saw Washington State shoot just 40 percent (10-25) from the field and get outrebounded by a wide margin (20-13). WSU had just one offensive rebound in the opening 20 minutes, committed eight turnovers leading to 13 Utah points and were dominated in the paint (22-12).

Contrastly, Washington State had zero points off Utah’s three first-half turnovers.

Josh Hawkinson made all four of his field goal attempts in the first half and grabbed seven rebounds. The rest of the Cougars combined to shoot 6-21 from the floor (28.6 pct.) with a paltry six rebounds.

The Cougars fell behind by 10 points less than seven minutes into the game and trailed by no fewer than five points for the remainder of the half.

Continuing to shoot well beyond the arc, Utah build the advantage to 20 points (55-35) just over five minutes into the second half, and the Cougars never seriously threatened thereafter.

Washington State sliced the deficit to 15 points on a 3-pointer by Que Johnson with 14:19 left in the game, but the Utes quickly responded with an 8-0 run to increase the gap to 23 points, largest of the game.

“They made everything they shot, but at the end of the day it comes down to our defense," Hawkinson said. “We just played soft."

WSU's losing streak has reached a season-high of four games. Coincidentally or not, Izundu has missed all four games with a foot injury.

“He could have had a big impact," Hawkinson said of Izundu. "But we can't really look at it like that because we didn't have him."

UP NEXT: Washington State hosts Colorado Saturday at 6 p.m. PT. The Pac-12 Network will televise the game.

PAC-12 SCORES (Jan. 20-21)

Washington 95, Colorado 83 (1/20)

UCLA 82, Oregon State 73 (1/20)

California 75, Arizona State 70

Oregon 89, USC 81

Utah 92, Washington State 71

Arizona 71, Stanford 57