When Washington State hosted California on Feb. 24, 2001, life was good.
The Cougars defeated the Golden Bears by 15 points.
And when the Cougars went into the locker room, they never expected to lose their next 34 conference games.
But they did. Washington State didn’t win another game until Feb. 13, 2003.
Cal started the streak, and when the Bears returned to Friel Court on Thursday night, they ended it. The Cougars triumphed, 67-64.
For head coach Sherri Murrell, it was a sigh of relief. One team can only get kicked around for so long.
“When you get punched in the head 21 times it’s fun to get that one blow back,” Murrell said after recording her first career coaching victory with Washington State. “It’s been two years for our players. It’s been a long time coming and I am so proud of them.”
The Cougars had a 45-game losing streak overall — the second longest in Division I history.
Washington State (1-22, 1-14 Pacific-10 Conference) can thank juniors Bianca McCall and Lindsey Egeland, as the two combined for 37 points to help drop Cal to 8-15 overall and 4-10 in conference play.
“We’ve been in this position too many times and came up short,” Egeland said. “We all said we are winning this game. We weren’t panicking or anything. We were just ready to get it done.”
Although they got it done Thursday, Stanford came to town Saturday and blew the Cougars out of the water by 43 points.

Cardinal far from inhuman
Stanford tossed the Cougars around Saturday, but Washington State can thank Washington for that.
The Cardinal released their anger on the Cougars after losing 92-68 to the Huskies Thursday. It was the worst Stanford loss in a Pac-10 game since 1991.
Washington (19-5, 11-4 Pac-10) had every reason to be angry after being humiliated by the Arizona schools the week before.
The Huskies earned revenge after losing their first game of the season to Stanford, and moved to 12-0 at home.
“Our mission was to come out in this game and play a lot more physical on the defensive end,” Washington head coach June Daugherty said. “We tried to take Stanford out of their comfort zone offensively. The number one thing was that we had to be physical and outrebound them. That mission was definitely accomplished.”

Polk is becoming ridiculous
Arizona center Shawntinice Polk is becoming rather selfish, as she just earned her third Pac-10 Player of the Week honor of the season.
In the Wildcats’ defeats of the Washington schools last week, Polk averaged 21 points, eight rebounds, three blocks, 1.5 assists and 1.5 steals.
And it was her 16th double-double of the season, which set a new Arizona single-season record. And her 50 blocks on the season are just three away from tying the school record.
And she is only a freshman. This is getting ridiculous.