LAS VEGAS — The lead already seemed good enough when Jeff Pollard caught the ball down low and slipped an inside bounce pass to Tony Miller, who drove to the basket, cocked his right arm back and punched the ball through the net, putting all 6-foot-8, 262 pounds of Evan Battey on a Washington State poster.
The Cougars played, and finished, like a team determined to shake off 10 years of misery at the Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament. So the 10-point lead they held at halftime wasn’t going to suffice, nor was the 20-point lead they established when Miller catapulted over Battey and dunked himself into the conversation for SportsCenter Top 10 honors, giving WSU its largest advantage at 22 points.