Bruins Beat Up Cougs: A Statement Win For Ben Ball Warriors?

Naaah. Not really. We can't call it a statement win. But certainly an important one against a very good and gutty Washington State team early in this conference season.

Ben Ball warriors throttle number 4 ranked Washington State in the House that Coach Wooden built. The final score was 81-74. (Early boxscore)

If not for an unreal last min desperate shooting display from the Cougs hitting one 3 after another in last few mins of the game (draining something like 7 bombs in last 2 mins) the game would have been a total rout. And you have to give huge props to the Cougars for not giving up and making all of us a tad bit nervous in those last 2 mins.

So what we end up with is another classic (or should we just call it "ho hum"?) win for our Ben Ball warriors in which they came out of the gate, locked down their opponent defensively, dominated the boards, and ripped apart a great opposing defense with their own offensive execution:


Photo Credit:Reed Saxon/AP (via Yahoo)

Shipp ended up with 14 points. He played a great game along with Collison (who nailed down some clutch shots and FTs in the second half), Luc, and Russell ... well here is the video from grok451:



Youtube, photobucket what's the difference! It looks spectacular anyway you cut it!

But the guy who had a spectacular day was Kevin Love. Love had his most dominating day as a Bruin yet, finishing with 27 points and 14 rebounds. Kevin was a beast at both ends of the court. He was unstoppable on offense, owning his guy (Baynes) around the post, while he shut them down on the other end of the court.

Kevin was also clutch from the line and he got his team-mates involved in offense with his share of beautiful passes. Just going by his first 4 games in Pac-10, I'd say he is making a case for being the next Bruin MVP.

That said Bruins still have some work to do. I am sure Coach Howland will be reminding the team about our defense during the last 2 mins of the game when the Cougs started connecting with their long bombs.

All in all not a bad afternoon at all. It wasn't a statement game for our warriors. But at 4-0 and still with room for improvement, Bruins served notice to rest of the Pac-10: this is our conference and rest of you just play in it.

Thread it up in yet another Ben Ball warriors post game victory thread.

GO BRUINS.