PULLMAN, Wash. β Washington State announced that 4,607 fans entered Beasley Coliseum on Thursday, meaning (at least) 61 percent of the arena's seats were empty.
Thatβs by far the lowest crowd of any non-ballroom crowd the Wildcats have played in front of this season, and UAβs blowout win ensured a minimum of noise. Throughout the second half, hardly the only voices audible to those of us sitting midway up were those of the cheerleaders.
Obviously, that wasnβt a problem for Allonzo Trier and Deandre Ayton.
βWe understand thereβs a bigger goal at hand and weβre playing for it,β Trier said. βWe have to be incredibly locked in on road games. If you go and lose on a night like this it can come back to bite you. So we want to be at our best.β
Trier responded by making all eight of his shots and scoring 24 points. Ayton had 25 points on 11-for-12 shooting and 11 rebounds, also unconcerned with the environment he was playing in.
βThat donβt matter. Donβt matter,β Ayton said. βIt was a big game regardless, because of who we were playing. You know what I mean? Whoever we play itβs a big game. We just come out and try to win every game.β
While Ayton played well in his home country before those ballroom crowds in the Bahamas, many of his teammates did not. Miller indicated the Wildcatsβ maturity has improved since those days, allowing the Wildcats to handle the mellow environment at WSU.
βThe crowd can be loud and sometimes not, but we canβt worry about that,β Miller said. βSame thing at home. Weβre not gonna win because we have one of the great crowds in college basketball. We appreciate it and we love it. Does it help us? Of course. But we have to perform well in addition to that.
βOn the road, itβs the same thing: You canβt cave in if the crowd gets loud. You know before the game starts that thatβs the case and if you enter an arena that doesnβt have a lot of energy, you have to play and know you only have each other and play the right away, which we did a good job of.β
In case you happened to come across the original box score distributed in person and on the wires after the game, it listed Trier as going 8 for 9 from the field.
His line was changed to 8 for 8, with a turnover instead and a steal received by WSUβs Malachi Flynn, because one of his βattemptsβ was ruled a failed alley-oop attempt.
That meant Trier had a perfect shooting night except for a missed free throw, all before he heads back to his hometown for a Saturday night game at Washington.
βAllonzoβs one of the best players in the country,β Miller said. βHeβs gone through a lot of different things. I think itβs built his character. Heβs playing the best basketball of his career for us. And weβre gonna need him to play great on Saturday.β
The corrected box score and updated stats are attached to this post, along with our game story, seen-and-heard notes and a photo gallery.
