Washington State may never have executed more efficiently and effectively in a 20-minute stretch — in a game, at a practice, heck, against air — than it did during the second half Thursday night at the Pepsi Center.
After struggling just to play 13th-seeded Winthrop for the first 20 minutes, the fourth-seeded Cougars flicked on a switch. A stunning 38-5 spurt to open the second half turned a competitive game into a runaway 71-40 victory for Washington State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Next up for the Cougars is a date with Notre Dame at 4:40 p.m. Saturday.
Judging by those blank stares, Winthrop players must not have known what had hit them until the postgame handshake. A hopeful 29-29 halftime score turned into a rout.
Washington State (25-8) scored the first nine points of the second half, then really took off.
“I kind of glanced up (at the scoreboard),” Winthrop senior forward Taj McCullough said, “and I was like, ‘Man, we’re stuck on 29.’ The shots we were taking were good looks. It was like there was a lid on the basket and they were bouncing out. Then we got away from what we’d been doing.”
Washington State hit 23 of its first 37 shots (.622) after halftime. Cougars coach Tony Bennett got into his players after a lackluster first half, telling them: “You’re either scared or overconfident. And you’d better figure out which it is.”
Everything starts with man-to-man defense, the coach said, and his players appeared to take it personally, holding Winthrop to 4-of-24 shooting from the field in the second half.
“There were a couple of times when I looked at their score,” Washington State senior forward Robbie Cowgill said. “We just took it as a challenge to keep up the D — let’s go as long as we can without letting them score. It was kind of fun to look up at each break and they were stuck at 29, then 34 for a little while.”
Sparking the Cougars was senior guard Derrick Low, who was held scoreless in the first half but finished with 11 points. A 3-pointer by Low from the top of the key put the Cougars up 36-29 three minutes into the second half.
From there, Washington State seemed to do everything right. McCullough, who had scored 15 points in the first half, was limited to two by Cowgill in the second half. The Eagles’ top offensive player, guard Michael Jenkins, went 1-for-9 from the field.
Winthrop (22-12) shouldn’t have been intimidated. The Eagles were making their fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance and eighth in 10 years, and they had defeated Atlantic Coast Conference members Georgia Tech and Miami during the regular season.
“It was just very frustrating,” Winthrop senior guard Chris Gaynor said.
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
