Changing of the Guard (er, Center)???

What a dandy out on the Palouse today, a great game that none of you saw unless you were part of the 8,148 inside of a rocking Beasley Coliseum. There were quite a few things that surprised me, and one thing I saw hinted at a potential line-up change that was reaffirmed with Coach Bone’s post game comment, “We’ll take a good look at it (the line up) this week.” Also, I believe one thing that could help these kids would be to channel their inner MJ.

Look at the halftime score, 46-26, how could you not think that?

Oh, did I just hear you just whisper “the Gonzaga game”?

Ok.

You win. You always do.

Of course the Cougs came out the gate slow in the second half, and eventually saw their lead dip into the single digits. They missed the front end of 1 and 1 situations an unhealthy amount of time and the Cardinal got within five, inside of a couple of minutes to play. Only Reggie Moore saved the day, redeemed himself for some of the aforementioned misses actually, by hitting 7 of 8 free throws in the final 50 seconds of play to seal the win.

DeAngelo Casto is still very much a work in progress.  Which shows as he only played 23 minutes, and sat the majority the final 13 minutes as WSU was trying to fend of the Cardinal attack.  All the while not ever really being in foul trouble. He has trouble catching passes in traffic and finishing and it is costing us. He reminds me of Jeff Varem or a young Aaron Baynes. Bone employed a much smaller lineup that saw Xavier Thames and Nikola each logging about 25 minutes. But what stood out to me most was the play of #40.

Who is #40 you ask?  Go ahead, look it up on the roster.

I’m waiting… I know you don’t know who #40 is…

Give up? Too lazy to click the link I provided you?

Ok, the answer is this guy.

Nope, that isn't Brock Motum. It's not Steven Bjornstad either.

Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Enquist!

Charlie came off the bench a couple of times to give the Cougs a much needed spark on the defensive end of the floor. He altered a handful of shots and swatted two away and totally captured the fan’s admiration. In fact, the Cougs reached double digits in blocks today, with the most impressive came from Marcus Capers. On a sloppy offensive play in the second half the Cougs turned the ball over, and one of the Cardinal players had a fast break that was more wide open than Brandon Gibson or Jared Karstetter in the final minutes of the 2007 and 2008 Apple Cup! Only Capers raced out of nowhere, jumped and made the prettiest block on the sure two handed slam dunk. I have a feeling we will start to see Charlie get a look as our true Center, with DeAngelo at Power Forward, Klay & Capers as our 2 and 3 guards, and Reggie manning the Point.

The one thing these young Cougs have shown time and again this season is that they cannot finish off their opponents. Gonzaga, LSU, Arizona, and Stanford have all been games that have featured double digit leads from our Cougs, only to see it fade early in the first half or in crunch time. And here is where I am suggesting they channel this guy.

Air Jordan was the best at going into full on “Eff You Mode” and attacking his opponent’s jugular. Whether it was a card game of Bid Wist with his buddies, or blatantly shoving Byron Russell to drain the most memorable shot of his career. Jordan cared about nothing other than winning and was the best we will ever see at putting teams away time and time again.  Until our Cougs can figure this out we will continue to see close games like this.

With the UW's torching of the Berkeley Bears, this Pac 10 race is still way up in the air. Regardless of the Pac 10 being viewed as way down this year, I think the remaining 8 weeks of the regular season and conference tournament will be wildly entertaining from the fan's perspective!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Go Cougs!