- The Pac-12 Conference announced Tuesday, March 1, that Washington State junior Bella Murekatete has been named the inaugural Pac-12 Conference Most Improved Co-Player of the Year, sharing the honors with Southern California's Jordan Jenkins.
Murekatete and Jenkins are the first players to be named Pac-12 Most Improved Player of the Year, as the honor was added to the conference's list of postseason awards this season.
The 6-3 center, who is the first-known, Rwandan-born player in NCAA women's college basketball, has made remarkable strides this season, as Murekatete is posting career highs in nearly every category this season. The post player is averaging 10.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.7 blocks, and 1.5 steals per game this season, all of which is a personal-best mark for a single season.
Coming into the 2021-22 season, Murekatete averaged 6.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game through 53 career contests and turned herself into a consistent threat in the post for Washington State.
- The Washington State women's basketball team had a pair of players pick up all-league honors Tuesday, March 1, as the Pac-12 Conference coaches voted sophomore Charlisse Leger-Walker to the All-Pac-12 team, while redshirt fifth-year senior Krystal Leger-Walker was selected to the All-Pac-12 honorable mention and All-Pac-12 Defensive team honorable mention selections.
The sister duo from New Zealand was a force to reckon with for the second-straight season, as the Leger-Walkers end the 2021-22 regular season leading the Pac-12 in total points and total assists for the second-straight year. Charlisse has scored 457 points through 28 games this season, while Krystal has dished out 131 assists.
The Leger-Walker sisters helped Washington State set the program records for most wins in a season in the NCAA (19) and most Pac-12 wins in a season (11) this year. The Cougars earned the program's highest finish ever in the Pac-12 standings this season, as Washington State went 11-6 to finish in a tie for second with Oregon. The Cougs earned a bye in the Pac-12 Women's Basketball Tournament for the first time in program history, as they'll be the No. 3 seed, with Oregon taking the No. 2 seed due to a tiebreaker with WSU.
Charlisse, who was the 2020-21 Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, becomes the fourth WSU player in program history to earn multiple All-Pac-12 accolades in their career. In addition to her Freshman of the Year honor last season, Charlisse was named to both the All-Pac-12 and All-Pac-12 Freshman teams. Leger-Walker leads the Cougars in scoring this season at 16.3 points per game, which is the fourth-best scoring average in the Pac-12.
https://wsucougars.com/news/2022/3/1/womens-basketball-leger-walkers-earn-all-pac-12-honors.aspx
- Continuing his stellar inaugural campaign in the Crimson and Gray, Mouhamed Gueye was named the Pac-12 Freshman of the Week for the fourth time on the year, earning the award for the week ending Feb. 27. His four awards are the second-most in the conference trailing only Stanford's Harrison Ingram who has earned a league-best six weekly awards on the year.
No other Coug has earned more than two weekly awards in a single season. In addition, the four awards for Gueye is the first time the Cougs have earned more than three weekly awards in a given season as a team in program history.
- When it comes to honoring conference outstanding performers, it was certain that Coach Kamie Ethridge would be tapped as Pac-12 Coach of the Year. Ethridge has led the Cougs to rarified air this season in total wins, conference wins, and players earning all-conference weekly and season honors. Clearly, the certainty of Ethridge being named COTY was the view of objective observers and Cougar Nation. The folks around the Pac-12 seem to consider WSU as an outlier school that should simply serve as a whipping boy for conference schools. With that said, Ethridge was not named COTY. To that, it should be said, "shame on the Pac-12" for snubbing the WSU coach and rendering their all-conference picks tainted, if not irrelevant. Here's a detailed opinion piece on the topic:
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/sports/washington_state_university/commentary-kamie-ethridge-lifted-washington-state-to-new-heights-but-is-snubbed-for-pac-12/article_969a55a5-b4b1-5538-a8fd-f0d77eaf7c84.html
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 ...
