Mouhamed Gueye's season-high 31 points not enough for WSU in loss at USC
Washington State couldn’t muster any offense outside of sophomore forward Mouhamed Gueye, who had his best game of the season shooting the basketball, but it was not enough to beat USC on the road, as the Cougars fell, 80-70, at the Galen Center in Los Angeles on Thursday night.
The Cougars were already missing three key role players with senior forward DJ Rodman, freshman center Adrame Diongue and freshman guard Dylan Darling all out due to an illness.
WSU (10-14, 5-8 Pac-12) only had seven scholarship players available and senior center Jack Wilson, the lineman converted basketball center, meaning a very thin bench and rotation for coach Kyle Smith.
The Trojans (16-6, 8-3) extend their home-winning streak to 10 games and earned a season split with the Cougars after losing 81-71 on New Year’s Day. The offense for USC ran through senior guard Boogie Ellis (23 points) and fifth-year guard Drew Peterson (20 points), who provided more than half of the team's scoring.
Gueye was the focal point of a thin-manned WSU team and was the main reason the Cougars were mostly leading or in this game throughout the first half and into the second half as he piled up 31 points and 12 rebounds.
The last time these two teams met in Pullman, the Cougars shot 48 percent from 3-point range, hitting 14 of them on the afternoon, but it was the complete opposite this time. The shooting struggles continued for this young WSU team, which shot 34.8 percent from long distance (8 of 23).
USC was holding a tenuous 1-point lead when Ellis knocked down two free throws with 1:50 to play, Peterson followed with a 3-pointer a minute later and Ellis then stole the ball and fed Vincent Iwucukwu for a fast-break dunk to make it 76-68 to essentially seal the win.
Smith said this team played well enough offensively but couldn’t defend the perimeter well enough to secure the road win.
“Credit to them. … Boogie and Peterson made some really tough shots, we gave up some other baskets that you know, we can’t give up easy ones,” Smith said.
Iwuchukwu, the 7-foot-1 center, had four blocks that really shifted the momentum of the game and the Cougars couldn’t find any inside room for an open basket with him in the way.
The Cougars had a 13-point lead in the first half and most of the momentum, but then the offense for the Trojans started to click from there.
WSU also turned the ball over 12 times, a key thorn in the side that doesn’t seem to go away for Smith’s team.
WSU player of the game
This was an easy pick.
Gueye dropped a career-high 31 points of the evening, the first 30-point game from a Cougar since Michael Flowers did it almost a year ago to the date (Feb. 6) against Washington on the road, and Gueye paired it up with another double-double.
Besides Gueye, the only Cougar to have double-digit points on the evening was junior guard Justin Powell, who finished with 11 points.
Gueye is always going to be a threat inside and continues to be the focal point of the offense even with the thin rotation.
What it means for the Cougars
The Cougars now drop back to 9th in the Pac-12 rankings and find themselves a game and a half ahead of Cal and tied with Stanford, who are sitting at the bottom of the conference. WSU continues to lose games where they have a solid chance of winning or have opportunities to come back.
WSU now has a 1-7 road record, one of the worst road records in the conference, and now face the top team in the conference at 4 p.m. PT on Saturday against UCLA in Pauley Pavilion on the Pac-12 Network.
Stats
Mouhamed Gueye: 31 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists
Andrej Jakimovski: 9 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists
Jabe Mullins: 2 points, 5 assists
TJ Bamba: 7 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists
Justin Powell: 11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal
Carlos Rosario: 6 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist
Jack Wilson: 1 rebound
Kymany Houinsou: 4 points