Cougar hoops teams get out to 1-0 start in WCC play

Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams for Washington State picked up wins in the conference openers on Sunday. In Pullman, the women’s team took down the Pepperdine Waves 66-63 to claim their second win of the season, while the men’s squad escaped the Portland Pilots 67-62.

The non-conference slate hasn’t been kind to either of the teams over the first month of the season. Kamie Ethridge’s team was challenged by one of the hardest non-conference schedules in the nation, squaring off with the likes of Stanford, Oregon, LSU, BYU, Texas Tech and Seton Hall, who all sit inside the top 50 on Barttorvik. Even the non-top 50 opponents they saw were still very tough matchups, such as UNLV, Missouri and Miami-Ohio. That kind of rollout is tough on any team, but especially for this year’s WSU team that has had to rebuild their roster and is leaning on a lot of underclassmen. This year is really the first time Ethridge has had to face a major rebuild of the roster. In the 2024-25 season, WSU still had the leadership of Tara Wallack, Astera Tuhina and Kyra Gardner, all of whom were on that 2022-23 Pac-12 Championship team. But over the offseason, Wallack graduated, Tuhina transferred to Oregon and Gardner transferred across the highway to Idaho. The transition into this next era has been challenging, but picking up a win against a solid Pepperdine team is a solid start to the conference season.

For the men’s team, they also took on a pretty tough non-conference schedule, ranking 91st in strength of schedule on KenPom. They managed to salvage wins against teams they should beat, like St. Thomas, Southern Utah, Eastern Washington and Mercer. Five of their eight losses so far have come against teams in the top 80 in KenPom. The win over Portland on Sunday put the Cougars on a three-game win streak, as there have been some improvements on the defensive front. It does help that their competition over the last three games hasn’t been as intimidating as it had been. Over their five-game losing streak, WSU was playing against teams with an average KenPom ranking of 72. Over their three-game win streak, the average rank has been 218. But as the old saying goes, a win’s a win.

The women’s team had to battle through some early adversity against Pepperdine. Neither team could find their shooting stroke early on, as the only run of the first quarter was just a mere 4-0 run by the Waves that helped build a five-point lead, the Waves’ largest of the game. WSU turned things around in the second frame as Mackenzie Chatfield and Tanja Valancic knocked down a pair of jumpers to flip the lead. The Waves would later get the lead back on a run of charity stripe shots bookended by a layup for a 6-0 run. Charlotte Abraham splashed back-to-back threes to steal the lead away before the halftime buzzer. The teams continued to jockey for the lead all throughout the third quarter, with neither getting any separation. It wasn’t until the final quarter that WSU finally began to separate. Ele Villa cashed a three to end the third quarter that got the ball rolling as Malia Ruud got one to go inside to begin the fourth quarter, and Abraham tacked on another three to give WSU the first—and only—double-digit lead of the game. The Waves continued to battle, answering every WSU bucket with one of their own to keep the game from getting out of hand. With under a minute to go, the Waves made it a one-possession game with a layup from Lina Falk. Villa answered right back with a layup of her own to go back up by two possessions. After the Waves could only get one of their two free throws to fall on the other end, WSU called a timeout to advance the ball to midcourt. On the inbound, Abraham received the pass and seemingly forgot which way the Cougars were playing, dribbling the ball over the midcourt line for a backcourt violation. The Waves couldn’t take advantage of the wild turnover, allowing Abraham and the team to laugh about the ordeal as Marta Alsina cashed her free throws to put WSU up five. Though the Waves were able to hit a three to get back within three and had a chance to tie the game with under 10 seconds to go, WSU was able to hold on to get to 1-0 in WCC play.

Down in Portland, the men’s team shared a similar late-game scare. The Cougars were feeling good and cruising to their first WCC win when Eemeli Yalaho capped off a 9-0 run to put WSU up 12 with 1:43 remaining. 47 seconds later, Portland was within five thanks to a 7-0 run solely from Mikah Ballew, who hit one three and four straight free throws. He then answered a pair of free throws from Ace Glass with another three to get within four. After another pair of free throws from Glass, Portland seemingly missed their final chance as Cameron Williams missed a three-pointer to get back within three, and the Pilots sent Yalaho to the line. Yalaho missed both of his charity-stripe shots, and Matus Hronsky cashed another three for the Pilots. Now the Pilots were just a steal and one more three-pointer away from miraculously sending this game to overtime. Out of the timeout, Riley drew up a perfect inbound play that sprung Jerone Morton free down the court like a wide receiver running a go route. Yalaho’s inbound hit Morton in stride, who took the basketball all the way down for a game-sealing layup with four seconds to go. While it got dicey at the end, it’s still a 1-0 start for WSU. Rihards Vavers led all scorers with 13 off the bench, part of 27 bench points for the Cougars.

Both teams will be back in action on Tuesday night, as the women’s team will host the Loyola Marymount Lions, and the men will head across the mountains to play the Seattle U Redhawks at Climate Pledge Arena.