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The biggest news for Cougar Nation coming out of the weekend would have to be the stunning play by Wazzu men's hoops (21-14,11-9 Pac-12) and their upset win over the No. 1 seed in the NIT tournament, SMU (24-9,13-4 AAC). The final score was 75-63. Clearly, WSU is playing their best basketball at the right time.
Wazzu led this one from start to finish. The win snapped the nation's third-longest home winning streak as SMU entered the day having won 19-straight contests inside of their coliseum. Let's roll out the old axiom, "you can't win 'em all". The Cougars were happy to oblige and dominate along the way.
Leading the way for the Cougs was their fifth-year captain, Michael Flowers, who scored a team-best 22 points on 6-of-13 shooting including 3-of-8 from distance. The key to Flowers game came down to his performance at the line as he made a perfect 7-of-7 while the Cougs finished the day 23-of-26 from the charity stripe. Alongside Flowers, it was the big man Efe Abogidi who asserted himself into the game with 12 points, eight rebounds, and a game-best three blocks, two of which came in the second half.
Coach Kyle Smith favors players that have both length and athleticism. His roster was the difference in this because SMU basically puts five guard/forward players on the court. The size of Efe Obogidi, Muhamed Gueye, and Dishon Jackson negated the speed and shooting talents of the Mustangs. WSU held a 28-10 rebound advantage at halftime with a robust margin of 46-32 at the end of the contest.
Another advantage utilized by Coach Smith was a deep bench. Winning on the road is always tough. When your opponent is undefeated on their home court, it's even tougher. That said, when Wazzu gets good production from their bench it typically results in a win. Sunday afternoon the WSU bench outscored SMU 17-2. In other words, that was the main difference in this one.
While the first half was all Cougs the second half turned into a battle as the Mustangs came out firing behind their conference player of the year, Kendric Davis. With Davis leading the charge the Mustangs went on a 14-2 run to cut WSU's lead to just 7 at the second media timeout, putting in doubt what was once thought to be game over for the Cougs. During the run, Davis dropped in 10 of his 24 second-half points to claw back into the game. Even when the lead was cut to just four with 2:30 to play with Davis going on a personal 10-2 run, WSU did not fold as the Cougs looked to Michael Flowers and Abogidi once again to quell the storm. A press-breaking dunk by Abogidi and a back-breaking three by Flowers moments later gave WSU breathing room from which they would close out the day from the line going a perfect 6-for-6 to secure the victory and a trip to the third round of the NIT.
The Cougs will take on No. 2 seed BYU in the third round of the tournament with the winner earning a trip to Madison Square Garden. Yep, it will be the Cougars versus the Cougars. The game will be played in Provo, Utah either Tuesday or Wednesday depending on ESPN television selections.
https://www.cougcenter.com/wsu-cougars-basketball/2022/3/20/22988091/nit-bracket-washington-state-cougars-vs-smu-mustangs-recap -
It wasn't all good news for Cougar Nation on Sunday. Cougar baseball (9-10, 1-5 Pac-12) lost the series finale to UW (12-8 overall, 4-2 Pac-12) completing a sweep by the Dawgs over the Cougs for the first time since 2007.
The game was tied 3-3 in the fourth when Washington erupted for five runs, then went on to cruise to a 14-3 win. The Cougs managed just four hits off Husky pitching and were horrendous in the field committing four errors.
Anemic offense and sloppy play in the field will only lead to more losses for WSU. The pressure on Cougar pitchers to strike out every opponent batter leads to costly mistakes. Coach Brian Greene and his staff have plenty of work to get their team much more fundamentally solid.
WSU continues its road stretch with a five-game road trip next week beginning with a Wednesday matchup at Santa Clara before facing Stanford next weekend. The Cougars will wrap up the road trip with a non-conference matchup at BYU the following Tuesday.
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 ...
