Since the Cougs were not on TV for the third game in a row, I thought I’d take the liberty of recapping tonight’s game versus Arizona State with a blow-by-blow recap. For those of you that were unable to watch, I present to you the thoughts I had as it all went down. It’ll be just like you were here in my living room watching the game with me, except not as weird, since you’re strangers and all. Here is my “kinda live, but not really since it is posted several hours later” blog! What follows are my notes as events occurred, listed in Pacific Standard Time.
6:53 – Behold the wonders of technology! Thanks to the live stream on Cougar All Access, I am looking (hopefully) live at Friel Court. I believe I can hear the muffled sounds of Glen Johnson’s voice.Awesome.
6:54 – Butch is wandering around aimlessly, mingling with the students that have assembled; looks to be a late arriving croud on the other side. Cheerleaders are throwing t-shirts! Free t-shirts make people insane.
6:58 – At long last, the Sun Devils have arrived! I thought for a minute they may have forfeited. I can’t see either hoop while the two teams are warming up. Hopefully this situation will improve.
7:02 – Whoa! All of a sudden there are commentators. Braulio Perez and Riley Corcoran will be taking us through the action tonight. Thanks, fellas. This is just like TV but smaller!
7:05 – OK, back to the still shot with the graphic over Friel Court. Now mics are live again. This is excit — buffering….time to refresh. This is not promising.
That’s it for the pregame festivites. Read on for the opening tip and all the game action.
7:09 – Game on! I actually missed the opening tip and the first few points. I don’t know what the score is or who the starting lineups were. I was hoping to be more helpful. There we go. It’s 5-5.
7:13 – Either Braulio or Riley refers to the Cougar defense as “stellar”. Looks more to me like ASU’s shooting is “bad”.
7:18 – I’m concerned that we will see a steady diet of the Cougs’ lazy rendition of zone defense tonight. ASU is quite content jacking up uncontested threes. Lodwick looks to be the only person working hard on D in the early going.
7:19 – On the bright side, the ball movement on offense has been terrific, including on the just completed not-so-fast break. Four guys touched the ball on the break. 14-9 Cougs.
7:25 – Simon to Motum on the Alley OOPS (AKA Simon throwing up an airball that Motum rebounded and put back). Just like they drew it up!
7:27 – ASU keeps firing away from deep. After an unlucky offensive board, Ty Abbott hits a three. They’re hanging around. Kids got alligator blood in their veins.
7:30 – We’ve got a Dre Winston, Jr. sighting. Curiously, I just now found out that Faisal Aden is not playing due to a sore knee. In my defense….OK I got nothing. I should have known that sooner. The Cougar D looks to be doing a better job rotating to contest shots. In particular, the bigs are flashing out to shooters on the elbow. This is good.
7:33 – A great high-low dish from Klay to Casto for two. Good basketball. Also, I have to let the cat out. Be right back.
7:36 – OOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!!!! Klay makes an unbelievable pass on the break to Capers who finishes with a tomahawk. An emphatic way to make a run. Klay was the key to this stretch, making plays on both ends as the Cougs extend the lead to 16.
7:42 – Klay sets up Capers for another dunk. I’m yelling. By myself. Admittedly, I haven’t watched a lot of the other candidates, but during sequences like the last several minutes, Klay Thompson sure looks like an All-American to me.
7:44 – ASU has scored on their last three possessions, including twice behind the arc. Don’t get lazy, fellas. Let’s bury this team.
7:46 – Eek. Winston misses two free throws (looking like he’s never shot one before in the process) and gives up a two on the other end as ASU cuts the half time lead to 10.
Half time: I put the UW-‘Zona game on the actual tv and grabbed a beer. The way the first half close, beer seemed like a good idea, just in case. If things turn south, the second half will be brought to you by…
8:03 – A couple of shaky possessions as Casto gets blocked on a tough hook shot and forces a pass for a turnover; or as Braulio said, “he forced the needle”. (I must say that all in all Braulio and Riley did a pretty terrific job. I enjoyed their work. Props to them.)
8:06 – The lead is down to six. Gulp.
8:07 – If a dinosaur played basketball, it would look exactly like the Sun Devils’ Jordan Pachynski.
8:08 – Back-to-back three’s for Klay Thompson: All American. Back-to-back fist pumps for Tim Huddleston: Doughy Guy on the Couch. He just missed an open look on a third. Dang. Cougs back up by 12. Thank you, Klay.
8:14 – Pac 10 refs, ladies and gentlemen! Reggie Moore is fouled while clearly shooting and the zebras say the foul was on the floor. Reggie tries to make up for it by jacking up two bad shots. Uh oh. Is this the arrival of “Bad Reggie”? Nope! He makes a nice play on the break to set up a wide open three for Patrick Simon. This is fun. Thanks for making it a short stay, Bad Reggie.
8:17 – I took a peek at the Husky game. Remember that time when one of the Dogs scored while getting fouled and didn’t yell like a crazy person? Me neither. Why so angry, Huskies?
8:24 – Klay with a great feed to Casto for two. He’s up to 19 points, tying a career high.
8:26 – Make that a new career high for DeAngelo Casto! A bucket and one gives him 22. He used his patented pump fake to draw contact and finish strong.
8:27 – Klay punctuates a 10-0 run with a transition three from the corner. Yes, his patented transition three.
8:29 – Another dunk for Marcus Capers. A patented Marcus Capers dunk, if you will. All three patented finishes in a row. That was fun.
8:30 – Capers with a ridiculous block! He erased an ASU fast break looking like Spiderman to make the block, control it and keep it in bounds. Dude’s a freak.
8:31 – Media timeout. Since there is no tv, I assume this timeout is for me to take notes. I appreciate it.
8:35 – Klay hits a jump hook over The Dinosaur. He’s up to a relatively quiet 19 points, if there is a way to go about it quietly.
8:36 – Klay with a corner three. If I’m ASU, I’d think about covering him. He’s sneaky.
8:37 – Casto just tried to dunk on The Dinosaur! If he’d have finished that, my head would have exploded. As it is, he got fouled.
8:41 – WSU by 17 with four minutes left (the first time in a while I wrote the score in my notes; lesson learned). At this point I’m officially on Loewen Watch.
8:44 – 25 points on the Casto-Meter.
8:45 – Beautiful bit of basketball by the Cougs. Thompson to Capers for the dunk. Again. This team really is fun to watch when they get it going.
8:46 – Winston: check. Motum: check. Moore and Casto come out to a nice ovation. It was definitely more for Casto after the night he had. A stroke of genius by Coach Ken Bone to get Reggie some applause after a tough week?
8:47 – Fire up “Sweet Georgia Brown”! Klay just made a Globetrotter-esque play on the break to set up Dre Winston for his first career field goal. Congrats, Dre. Sorry about the free throw thing earlier.
8:48 – Enquist: check. Dilorio: check …… and Loewen: CHECK!! Ben Loewen, the human victory cigar is in the game! The back-ups run out the clock. Final score: WSU 78 – ASU 61. I thoroughly enjoyed not having to sweat one out.
All in all, this game went about as well as I could have hoped, especially without the services of Faisal Aden. Casto and Moore (particularly in the first half) filled the secondary scoring void, Klay Thompson did Klay Thompson things, Marcus Capers did Marcus Capers things and Abe Lodwick did Abe Lodwick things. I hope that the ball movement on offense carries over to Saturday. I still think we’ll have to tighten the screws defensively a bit more against the likes of Arizona, but I like our chances.
Until then, Go Cougs.
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