(1090 The Fan) — Washington State welcomed back its leading scorer DaVonte Lacy and said goodbye to a 4-game losing streak by upsetting its in-state rival Washington Huskies, 72-67.
D.J. Shelton scored 20 points and grabbed 18 rebounds for Washington State (9-12, 2-7) which survived a desperate late run from the Huskies to notch just its second Pac-12 win of the season, Saturday afternoon.
Washington (13-9, 5-4) lost despite 24 points from senior C.J. Wilcox who finished 9-for-14 from the field. Perris Blackwell finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds to aid the Huskies who shot 44 percent for the game.
The return of Lacy, who had missed eight of the Cougars last nine games after averaging 17.7 points per game, clearly aided a Washington State squad that had been in a tail spin.
The Cougars had lost eight of their past 10, including four in a row entering Saturday’s game with the Huskies. Even though Lacy scored just 10 points and shot 2-for-10 from the field, his presence took pressure off of Shelton and Que Johnson, who had 15 points, enabling a stronger output from the Cougars’ offense which had been struggling.
Down 42-34 at 13:40 in second half, the Cougars mounted a game-changing comeback led by Johnson over the next eight minutes to take a commanding 56-45 lead with just over five minutes to play.
It was an incredible momentum swing which left the Huskies unable to do much but try to stretch the game out by fouling. Washington would crawl to within four points, but that was all.
Washington State owned the glass, out-rebounding the Huskies 39-36 and held the turnover edge 12-5.
-Anthony Dion, 1090 The Fan
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