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Short turnaround gives Washington State minimal time to
prep for DeAndre Ayton, Arizona
UPDATED: Tue., Jan. 30, 2018, 9:37 p.m.
By Theo Lawson Spokane S-R
PULLMAN – The good news for the Washington State
basketball team: After three consecutive road losses that saw the Cougars lose
by an average margin of 13 points and continue their post-Wooden Legacy
freefall, they’re finally back in the familiar trappings of Beasley Coliseum.
WSU’s record in Pullman – six wins and three losses –
isn’t sparkling, but the Cougars are faring better in their own gym than they
are elsewhere – and by a long shot. With Sunday’s 18-point loss to Washington
at Alaska Airlines Arena, they fell to 0-7 in true road games and have gone
more than a calendar year without winning at another Pac-12 arena.
The bad news is that WSU’s next opponent has the tendency
to negate the advantage teams have playing on their home court. And a short turnaround
following Sunday’s loss to the Huskies gives the Cougars only 72 hours to study
No. 9 Arizona, its projected No. 1 NBA Draft pick center and its preseason
All-American guard.
“Extremely tough,” WSU coach Ernie Kent said.
“Particularly getting back late night Sunday, you don’t sleep well. These guys
have to get up to go to class Monday and they’ve got some bumps and bruises.
And you try to get a practice in today to play a team of that magnitude on
Wednesday, that’s extremely tough to do and yet we know that. We have to play
them, we have to get ready to play them and we’ll be ready to play.”
Tipoff between the Wildcats (18-4, 8-1) and the Cougars
(9-11, 1-7) is at 7 p.m. and Pac-12 Networks will televise the only
regular-season meeting between the teams.
It’s a normal year when the Wildcats come to Pullman
nationally ranked and with expectations to compete for a national championship.
But never has Arizona produced the top pick of the NBA Draft and Sports
Illustrated, CBSSports.com and Bleacher Report all project the Wildcats’
freshman phenom, DeAndre Ayton, to become the first.
Ayton’s been more than a tough cover for opponents this
year, averaging 19.5 points per game – second in the Pac-12 – and a
conference-leading 10.7 rebounds per game. He’s one of 16 players in college
basketball averaging a double-double.
The key to stopping Ayton?
“We’re not going to stop him,” Kent said. “I’ll tell you
that right now. It’s not about stopping him. I think the biggest thing for us
in the game is making sure we have our energy and competitive nature to go into
a game ready to play and be able to show what we can do.”
Forward Drick Bernstine will be one of the Cougars asked
to check Ayton. Of the challenge, Bernstine said: “Just go in and not think
anyone’s better than you kind of thing. That’s just my mindset in every game.”
Some combination of Jeff Pollard, Robert Franks, Arinze
Chidom and Davante Cooper will also be deployed to cover Arizona’s high-motored
big man.
“He’s an all-around player,” Cooper said of Ayton. “… But
he still can be contained.”
A productive game from Ayton on the offensive end could
help him make up ground on teammate Allonzo Trier, who’s the front-runner for
the Pac-12 scoring title at 19.7 ppg and was a preseason First Team
All-American according to the Associated Press.
Trier is also somewhat of an anomaly for a Sean
Miller-coached team. The Wildcats have never lacked strong backcourts, but few
of the guards as talented as Trier stay more than one season.
Miller’s had Trier for three – his sophomore campaign was
cut in half after a positive PED test – but the experience of the Seattle-born
junior is one reason many think the Wildcats are better suited than they’ve
ever been to contend for a national crown.
Dusan Ristic, the most recent Pac-12 Player of the Week,
complements Ayton inside with his 7-foot, 245-pound frame. Arizona expects
2016-17 All-Freshman candidate Rawle Alkins to return Wednesday after missing
three of the last four games with an injury.
“They’re extremely big, they’re athletic, they defend,
they run, they score, they do everything right,” Kent said. “And they’re an
impressive basketball team. We’ve got to offset some of that.”
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Looking back at Washington State’s last top-ten win
With #9 Arizona on deck for the Washington State men
tonight, it’s time to take a trip down memory lane.
By Jeff Collier Coug Center
Jan 31, 2018, 5:03am PST
It’s been (another) rough season for Cougar basketball
fans, but this one might be even more painful than usual.
Of course, the year started off with such promise. The
team won seven in a row to start the season, but has free fallen since. Since
winning the Wooden Legacy Tournament, the team is just 3-14.
And it’s likely to get even tougher from here. After
their loss to Washington on Sunday, the Cougs have a short turnaround at the
worst possible time. On Wednesday, the team will host the 9th ranked Arizona
Wildcats in Pullman.
The Cougs don’t have a great record against the Wildcats.
They haven’t beaten Arizona since the 2010 season. But their record against
ranked Arizona teams is even worse. According to the WSU game notes, the
Cougars are 3-44 against a top-25 Arizona team and 1-27 against top-10 Arizona
teams.
That one win, also happens to be Washington State’s last
win over a top-10 team, and it came all the way back in 2007.
The game, that took place on January 6, 2007, acted as
the coming out party for a talented Cougar team that would head to the 2nd
round of the NCAA Tournament that season (and the Sweet 16 the next season.)
That Cougar squad was led by Washington State legends
like Kyle Weaver, Derrick Low, Ivory Clark, Taylor Rochestie and Robbie
Cowgill. But on that night it was the unsung hero Daven Harmeling taking center
stage. The redshirt sophomore put up a career high 28 points — Including seven
three-pointers — to lead the way to the Cougar win.
Washington State was dominant at times, but the Wildcats
rallied in the end. They scored the final seven points of regulation for force
overtime, tied at 67. But the Cougs put Arizona away in OT, picking up the
77-73 win. It was their biggest home win since beating #6 UCLA in 1983 and
their first overtime win since beating Nevada in 2000.
Fast-forward to 2018. The Wildcats are back in the
top-ten... But the Cougs don’t appear set to head back to the NCAA Tournament
like they did in 2007.
The highlights from the game are above. You can pass the
time waiting for tip-off by watching those over and over again. The 2018
edition of Cougs vs. Wildcats tips off tonight at 7 o’clock with TV coverage on
the Pac-12 Network.
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Jed Collins: Pat Chun and the power of positive thinking
Cougar women head into road trip without June Daugherty
'She’s here even though she’s not, we definitely miss
her'
By Dylan Haugh – Cougfan.com
PULLMAN - Washington State women's basketball team will
take a three-game losing streak into Arizona on Friday. But what the Cougs
would really like in addition to a win is to get their head coach back.
June Daugherty this past Wednesday announced she would
take an indefinite leave of absence last week citing health concerns. A WSU
spokesperson on Tuesday said nothing has changed since last week’s statement
and it is unknown when she will return. A source close to the program told CF.C
Daugherty was not expected back for this weekend's road trip.
“The medical procedure I had a few weeks ago was
successful, but I need some additional time to rest and heal,” Daugherty said
in the Jan. 24 statement. "I have great confidence that my staff will
continue to coach the Cougs to their best play yet. I believe in this team and
I am excited to see them continue to have success in Pac-12 Conference
play."
Senior guard Pinelopi Pavlopoulou is one of many
international players Daugherty has brought to Pullman over her 11-year tenure
at WSU. The Athens, Greece native said WSU (9-13, 2-8 Pac-12) missed its leader in the 73-72 home loss to
USC, two days after Daugherty announced her leave of absence.
“She’s here even though she’s not, we definitely miss
her," said Pavlopoulou. "She
brings a great positive energy all the time ... She’s taking care of herself
now, we respect that. We think that’s best for her. We just have to do our job,
we have a great coaching staff in place, we trust them.”
Associate head coach Mike Daugherty, June's husband, is
the acting head coach. He also took over
earlier this season when June missed
three games. He's 1-5 all time as
acting head coach, including a 1-4 record this season.
“With everything that’s gone on the last week and a half
... some of them aren’t sleeping, they’ve been emotionally drained,” said Mike
Daugherty. “Not to make excuses but there’s a lot of things that go on outside
of what’s going on -- on the basketball court.”
NOTABLE NOTE:
WSU tips at Arizona Friday at 5 p.m. on the Pac-12
Network. The desert road trip concludes Sunday at Arizona State (1 pm, no TV).
Junior Alexys Swedlund coming off an injury saw action
for the first time in two weeks against No. 12 UCLA on Sunday in a 79-71 loss.
Swedlund leads the Cougs with 28 3-pointers this season.
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First-generation students at WSU help break the language
barrier
Financial aid office translates website to Spanish
By Taylor Nadauld, Moscow Pullman Daily News
College students, former and present, know the
anxiety-induced frustration of applying for financial aid.
Now imagine sorting through the university's
primarily-English financial aid website with your parents, who barely speak the
language.
That was the situation for Ramiro Mora as a student at
the University of Idaho.
Mora's parents come from Mexico. Their first language is
Spanish. And like many parents of first-generation college students, they made
themselves involved in Mora's financial aid application process.
"In Hispanic culture, the families are very much
intertwined," Mora said. "They're very much involved in the student's
life when it comes to finances and education and stuff like that."
Applying for financial aid can be difficult for any
student to navigate. Add being the first member of your family to go to college
and the fact that you have to translate the process to your Spanish-speaking
family, Ramiro said, and it becomes that much more difficult.
Last year, Mora and about 10 other first-generation
students working for WSU's Student Financial Services began translating WSU's
entire financial aid website to Spanish.
Today, the website is fully-functional, fully translated
and is already getting views. According to Brian Dixon, assistant vice
president for WSU Student Financial Services, WSU appears to be the first
public university in the country with a fully translated site.
"As we approached completion of the project, I
understood why," Dixon wrote the Daily News in an email. "It is a big
investment both to complete the translation and then to maintain it. We think
the investment is worth it. Financing college is a family decision, and we want
to remove as many barriers to student success as we can."
Carmen Kroschel, a graduate student intern in the
financial aid office, said she spent about 10 to 15 hours a week translating
pages, often referring to her co-workers to ensure her translations fit a
Mexican genre of Spanish that would be meaningful to the website's target
audience.
Kroschel took out her first student loans her junior
year. Even as a native English-speaker, she said she struggled to understand
the process.
"I remember how frustrated I was, so I can't even
imagine their frustration," Kroschel said of Spanish-speaking students and
their families.
She and Mora began working for the financial services
office a little more than a year ago. In that time, they said, they noticed an
uptick in students and families who requested financial aid assistance in
Spanish.
According to a WSU News report, the number of Hispanic
undergraduate students attending WSU more than doubled between 2009 and 2016,
from 1,405 to 3,512. That number, according to the report, equals about 14.1
percent of WSU's undergraduate population.
Catering to that population wasn't just a translation
process for the team. Kroschel said there was editing that needed to be done to
simplify the English website and make its Spanish translation understandable
for students and their parents attempting to understand what can otherwise be a
complex financial issue.
But for Kroschel and Mora, the new service is not just
about helping students with their financial aid. It is about making them feel
welcome at WSU and giving them a space to express themselves in the language
that is easiest for them.
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