California Clips Cougars In Overtime

The Washington State University Cougar men's hoop team clawed all the way back from a 12-point deficit in the second half to send the game into overtime but ran out of gas in the extra period and the California Bears prevailed, 88-81 in Berkeley. With the loss, the Cougars drop to 2-3 in conference play and 12-5 overall.

Wazzu scored the game's first five points as junior shooting guard Klay Thompson hit a bucket and junior Abe Lodwick nailed a three-ball. California came back to tie the game at 10-10 and then the Cougars went cold for the next two minutes as California went on a 9-1 run to take a 19-11 lead. The Bears would hold that gap for the remainder of the half as the Cougars struggled on defense and in containing California's freshman guard Allen Crabbe who was responsible for 17 of the Bears' points as they took a 42-32 advantage into the locker room at halftime.

Wazzu came roaring back in the first four minutes of the second half with a 15-6 run to close the Cal lead down to a single point at 48-47 with 15:20 remaining in the game. The Bears were able to stave off the Cougars' run and built their lead back out to 10 points at 60-50 with 11:46 remaining. Once again, Wazzu came storming back with a 9-2 run to cut Cal's lead to three at 62-59 with 8:50 remaining in the game. A tip-in by junior Marcus Capers gave the Cougars a 66-66 tie with 7:07 left but they could still not grab the lead until Thompson nailed a trey with 3:52 left to give Wazzu a 71-70 advantage. The Bears scored the next four points but Thompson hit another three-ball with 15 seconds left to send the game into overtime.

California built a six-point lead in the opening minutes and Wazzu chopped the Cal lead back down to three at 84-81 but the Cougars finally ran out of gas and the Bears score3d the game's final four points for the winning margin.

Thompson led three Cougars in double figures with a game-high 36 points followed by fellow junior DeAngelo Casto with 11 points and sophomore point guard [/db]Reggie Moore[/db] with 10 points.Casto finished with a double-double, pulling down 11 rebounds for the Cougars.

NOTES

- Wazzu shot 92% from the free throw line in the game hitting 12 of 13 shots from the charity stripe with the only miss being attributed to Casto.

Washington State University continues their Pac-10 season with a game against Stanford at 5PM on Saturday, January 15, in Palo Alto

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