Adama-Alpha Bal scored 23 points and Santa Clara held off a late comeback to defeat Washington State 69-61 Saturday at the Jerry Colangelo Classic in Phoenix.
Johnny O’Neil had 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Broncos (8-4), who snapped a three-game skid and improved to 3-1 against Pacific-12 Conference teams this season. Carlos Marshall Jr. added 10 points.
Isaac Jones led Washington State (8-2) with 16 points. Andrej Jakimovski added 14 and Myles Rice scored 12 for the Cougars, who had a six-game winning streak come to an end.
It was the fourth time this season Bal has scored more than 20 points, all against Pac-12 teams. The transfer, who averaged just 2.0 points in two seasons at Arizona, scored 23 in an 89-77 victory at Stanford on Nov. 14, 25 in an 88-82 win versus Oregon at the Emerald Coast Classic in Florida on Nov. 24 and 22 in an 84-69 loss at California on Dec. 2.
Bal was 6 for 9 from the field, including 3 of 4 from 3-point range, and made all eight of his free-throw attempts.
Bal scored 15 points in the first half Saturday as the Broncos took a 39-23 lead.
The Cougars were up 16-12 with 13:55 left in half before Santa Clara went on a 23-1 run.
Kymany Houinsou’s fast-break dunk off a turnover with 2:56 left in half was the first Washington State field goal since Jakimovski’s 3-pointer with 14:42 remaining.
The Cougars used a late 10-0 run to pull within 60-54 with 2:23 remaining.
WSU’s Jones made a dunk with 49 seconds left to cut Santa Clara’s lead to four points, but the Broncos went 6-for-6 from the free-throw line the rest of the way to close out the victory.
Santa Clara shot 41.1% from the field (23 of 56) while limiting the Cougars to 33.3% (22 of 66).
Broncos sophomore 7-footer Christoph Tilly, who averages 8.3 points and 4.2 rebounds, didn’t play for undisclosed reasons.
–Field Level Media
