-
The Cougs men's basketball team (8-5, 1-1) will leave the Palouse for just the second time on the year as they hit the road to the Mountain Schools to take on Colorado (9-3, 1-1) to begin the new year. The Buffs have been off the court since Dec. 18 due to Covid related issues. Their opening weekend against the Oregon Schools was postponed just as the Cougs was. On the year the Buffs are 9-3 entering the game Thursday including 1-1 in Pac-12 play with a win over Stanford and a loss to UCLA, both in early December. Last season the Buffs took back-to-back games 70-59 in Pullman and 70-58 in Boulder. All-time the Cougs have yet to win on the road at Colorado at 0-10. The game will be telecast on ESPN2 with tipoff slated for 6pm PST. Be sure to set your DVR.
https://wsucougars.com/news/2022/1/5/mens-basketball-back-to-business-in-boulder.aspx -
WSU women's hoops (9-4, 1-1 Pac-12) will be on the road to take on No. 4 Arizona (10-0, 0-0 Pac-12). This matchup marks the second game in a row Wazzu will take on a Top 10 opponent. Tipoff is scheduled for 5pm PST on Friday. Yet another chance to set your DVR as the game will be telecast on Pac-12 Network.
Sophomore Charlisse Leger-Walker and redshirt fifth-year senior Krystal Leger-Walker have been racking up the minutes once again this season for Washington State. The Cougar sister duo currently ranks first and second in the Pac-12 in minutes played per game, with Charlisse averaging 36.24 minutes per contest, which leads the Pac-12, while Krystal is logging the second-most minutes per game in the league at 34.49.
The Cougars have been one of the country's best shot-blocking teams all season, as WSU heads into the week ranked 19th in the nation in blocks with 68 total swats. Washington State features two players that rank inside the top-10 in the conference in blocks. Junior Bella Murekatete's 26 blocks are the second-most in the league while freshman Tara Wallack is eighth in the conference with 15 swats. -
The Washington State Women's Tennis team being its 2022 spring season at the 2022 Weinman Foundation Invitational, hosted by the University of Hawaii at the UH Tennis Complex, January 6-8, in Honolulu.
For the 2021-22 season the Cougars will have four new players to accompany the four returners. The returning roster consists of fifth-year senior Michaela Bayerlova, seniors Yang Lee and Savanna Ly-Nguyen, sophomore Fifa Kumhom and freshmen Hania Abouelsaad, Stefaniia Mikhailova, Maxine Murphy and Elyse Tse. Bayerlova begins the 2021-22 season No. 47 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) preseason rankings. Bayerlova, from Krumbach, Germany, finished her 2021 season ranked No. 69. Last summer, she captured her first professional title since 2019, and fifth of her career, when she won the International Tennis Federation Frederiksberg tournament in Frederiksberg, Denmark.
Raquel Atawo begins her first season as head coach of the Cougars after being named to the position July 2, 2021. Atawo arrived in Pullman having spent last season as the assistant coach at Auburn and prior to that, spent 15 years on the WTA Tour, where she reached at No. 10 world ranking in doubles.
Go Cougs!!!
- It seems fitting to put together a list of coaches who branch off of the Mike Leach coaching tree. Perspective on his football genius can easily be determined by a cursory glance:
Dave Aranda/Baylor head coach – Graduate assistant coach under Leach from 2000-02 at Texas Tech
Neal Brown/West Virginia head coach – Played under Leach in 1998 when Leach was offensive coordinator at Kentucky
Sonny Cumbie/Louisiana Tech head coach – Played under Leach at Texas Tech from 2000-03 and later served as a graduate assistant coach under Leach
Sonny Dykes/TCU head coach – Coached wide receivers and later was the co-offensive coordinator at Texas Tech under Leach from 2000-06
Josh Heupel/Tennessee head coach – Played under Leach at Oklahoma in 1999 when Leach was the offensive coordinator for the Sooners
Dana Holgorsen/Houston head coach – Coached alongside Leach as assistants at Valdosta State from 1993-95, then served as a wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator under Leach from ...
- The news of former WSU Coach Mike Leach passing at the young age of 61 is very, very sad. I had the pleasure of writing about the Cougs when Leach was at the helm. To say that he was a unique person doesn't begin to describe the multi-faceted dimension of the man.
In terms of coaching football, Leach led his teams in a way that had most other coaches scratching their heads. His offensive creativity gave a multitude of defensive coordinators ulcers. To say that his techniques for molding student-athletes into football players were unusual would be accurate. Making guys run sprints in a sand pit named "Leach Beach" is a prime example. Crazy as that sounds, his players had fewer ankle injuries over the course of the season than any team in football. Only Mike Leach could get players to hit the beach. And if you look at the coaching tree that branches out from Leach, you'd find a myriad of men who owe him for their start in the profession.
When you examine the way Leach represented the schools ...
- Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, so Wazzu's loss yesterday to UNLV by a score of 74-70 was just that, a loss. However, there were plenty of reasons to applaud both the performance and the progress the Cougs are making over the past few games. Let's get the bad observation out of the way. WSU turned the ball over a ridiculous 22 times. No one is going to beat many teams with such wreckless play, especially against a team that posted a 9-0 record going into the contest. Some of those errors might be attributed to Coach Kyle Smith going with a different lineup almost every game because of player injuries. Facts are facts and when there isn't a steady lineup, players struggle to play team ball. On the bright side, Wazzu shot a respectable 54.2% from the field, coupled with a very nice 56.5% from behind the arc. On defense, WSU held UNLV to just 30.4% from behind the arc and 50.9% overall. The Cougs outrebounded the Rebels by a margin of 33-20. Despite being down by ...
