Tonight's game was a perfect example of a game that was temporarily entertaining due to drama rather than quality of play.
Put simply, it was indisputably a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad game.
Then out of nowhere, the Washington Huskies finally started to hit shots. And maybe it wasn't entirely out of nowhere because it was the direct result of UW's defensive intensity with them throwing a full court trapping press at WSU and forcing them into more mistakes.
However, it was indeed only temporary - after a run to cut the lead to six points with under four minutes left, two minutes later, they found themselves down double digits. And then the game just continued on its steady path of deterioration with a double technical on UW senior Venoy Overton and WSU junior Marcus Capers.
Perhaps what's most disappointing is that this was presumably a game in which the Huskies didn't need much to motivate them - coming home against an opponent who beat them earlier in the season in a rivalry game. So that their defensive intensity was more lackadaisical than it had been all year and their offensive execution was completely inconsistent, regardless of whether that be due to WSU's defense, was surprising to say the very least.
Don Ruiz of The News Tribune has a full damage report.
UW Huskies Insider - " Cougars complete season sweep of Huskies The News Tribune Blogs, Tacoma, WA
The surprising loss ended a streak of 14 straight home of 10 points or more for the Huskies.The loss also drops Washington to 19-9 on the season, and maybe for the first time this season could slip them back to the NCAA tournament bubble. UW also lost ground it could not afford in the Pac-10 race, falling to 10-6.
Washington State climbs to 18-10 and 8-8.