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The Washington State women's basketball team (19-9,11-6 Pac-12) set the program record for most wins in a season in the NCAA era, as the Cougars collected a 73-67 win at California (11-12,1-10 Pac-12) Saturday, February 26, to pick up their 19th win of the year to close out the 2021-22 regular season.
The Cougs controlled the game through the first three quarters en route to a 73-67 conference win. Going down the stretch of the fourth quarter made things nervous for WSU fans and their coaching staff. Washington State opened the fourth quarter on an 11-0 run to take a 21-point lead. Ula Motuga's 3-point field goal gave the Cougars a game-high 22-point lead with 5:23 left to play in the game. The Cougs had to withstand one final punch from the Bears, as Cal pulled to within four points at 71-67 in the closing minute before securing a six-point victory. As Wazzu moves on to the Pac-12 tournament and a likely ticket to the NCAA dance, they will need to avoid long scoreless droughts to keep their hopes alive.
Sophomore Charlisse Leger-Walker led the Cougs in scoring, as the guard from New Zealand registered 21 points in the regular-season finale. Leger-Walker ends the 2021-22 regular season as the Pac-12 leader in points scored with 457 points. It is also her 10th game this season with 20-or-more points, which is the most 20-point games collected by a Pac-12 player this season.
With the win, Washington State also secures its first bye in the Pac-12 Tournament in program history. The Cougars end the 2021-22 regular season tied with No. 25 Oregon for second in the Pac-12 standings. WSU heads to Las Vegas next week as the tournament's No. 3 seed, as the Ducks hold the tiebreaker over the Cougars.
https://247sports.com/college/washington-state/Article/WSU-makes-basketball-history-Cougs-clinch-first-round-bye-and-No-3-seed-in-Pac-12-Tournament-183520446/ -
After getting off to another good start against the UW on their court in Seattle, WSU men's hoops faded in the second half to end up on the wrong side of the scoreboard, losing 78-70 and splitting the Apple Cup season series.
Michael Flowers scored a season-high 30 to lead Washington State (15-13, 8-9) but was shut down in the second half. Flowers was near perfect making five 3-pointers and tallying 20 points in the first half. He was stymied for much of the second half when the Dawgs put one defender on him to prevent passes, open shots, and somehow shutting down the rest of the Cougs to deny scoring help.
So what happened? Washington started the second half on an 18-6 run, quickly erasing the six-point halftime deficit. Once the Dawgs gained confidence on offense, that transferred to inspire their defensive efforts.
Pac-12 scoring leader Terrell Brown Jr. scored 21 of his 25 points in the second half. The Cougs might have benefitted from taking a page out of the Husky playbook and deny Brown the ball. They didn't and paid dearly for allowing Brown to knock down a variety of shots from both outside and inside. To his credit, once Brown got the ball he was unstoppable.
Next up for the Cougs is a tilt with Oregon State Monday night in Corvallis at 8pm on ESPNU. -
Cougar baseball (5-3) wrapped up their weekend series with Long Island University (3-5) taking the finale 9-2 in front of 228 fans down in Peoria, AZ.
Cole McMillan started the game and went four innings, giving up a lone earned run and striking out seven LIU batters. Connor Barison took the mound to begin the fifth and worked the next three innings, striking out six of the nine batters he faced while not allowing a run and earning the win in the process.
WSU received a three-hit game from Kyle Russell, a two-run homer from Elijah Hainline, and WSU rallied from a 2-0 deficit with a one in the fourth, two in the fifth, and three runs in both the sixth and seventh innings. Overall, the Cougs rapped out ten hits to compliment some outstanding pitching.
Next up for Wazzu is a trip to Texas to take on Tarleton State in a four-game series beginning on Wednesday, March 2 at 4:30pm.
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 ...
