Motum scores 25, senior Lodwick adds a spark

It was obvious that senior Abe Lodwick did not want his college career to end on Monday night against Wyoming.

Lodwick scored a career-high 16 points, hauled in seven boards and dished out four assists in the Cougars' 61-41 victory over the Cowboys in the quarterfinals of the College Basketball Invitational.

"I really felt that Abe did just as good of a job defensively as he did offensively," WSU coach Ken Bone said. "It's just neat to see seniors like that just continuing to keep their career alive and perform the way he did."

Lodwick said the game was pretty special for him, although he hopes it won't be his last hurrah in front of Cougar nation.

"It feels really good, I'm pretty happy right now," Lodwick said. "My teammates did a great job of getting me open and I was able to knock them down and I was pretty confident in my shot."

Lodwick's performance gave the Cougars offense an added spark to pair with the game-high 25 points from first-team All-Pac 12 selection Brock Motum. But WSU also played some stout defense against Wyoming.

The Cowboys shot an anemic 36 percent from the floor, including only 30 percent in the second half. The Cougs also capitalized on 11 Wyoming turnovers, including eight in the first half.

"We guarded really well, I thought our kids understood what their strengths were and played to that pretty well," Bone said. "But all in all, our kids did a great job of holding them to 41 points."

Motum grabbed seven rebounds to go with his 25 points.

"He just continues to have good games, almost night in and night out," Bone said of his junior star. "What I really like is there's no animosity, there's no jealousy whatsoever with our guys- they just keep giving him the ball. I like the fact that our guys understand Brock is a great target and they continue to look for him."

The game got off to a slow start as neither team could get anything going offensively. At the 11:19 mark of the first half, the Cowboys held a slight advantage at 8-7.

The crowd got energized after senior Marcus Capers threw down an electric dunk after a Davonte Lacy steal to give WSU a 9-8 lead. The Cowboys kept the game close, and the Cougars led just 26-21 at halftime.

But the Cougs opened the second half on a 14-4 run, extending their advantage to 40-25 halfway through the second half.

The Cougars will continue the CBI tournament as they head to Corvallis on Wednesday to take on Oregon State in one semifinal.