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WSU bats were tamed Sunday by Arizona pitching and the Cougs dropped the series finale 5-2. However, Wazzu does return home for a weekend in Tucson with their first series win against Arizona since 2014. At least that drought is over.
Next up for WSU will be a home series with Cal beginning this coming Friday with the first pitch scheduled for 3:05pm. The game can be seen on WSU live stream found on the Pac-12 site.
https://wsucougars.com/news/2022/4/10/baseball-cougars-drop-finale-earn-series-win-at-no-9-arizona.aspx -
It didn't take long for former men's hoops guard Noah Williams to find a new home. Just a few days after entering the transfer portal Williams has decided to return to his hometown of Seattle and play for the Huskies. He will hope to fill the void created by the graduation of Terrell Brown. That might be easier said than done. Noah has long been a solid defender but has yet to find offensive consistency. It's one thing to have potential and quite another to deliver production. That has long been the case for Williams. Coming out of high school, Washington State was the only Power 5 school to offer him a scholarship.
Though it's never desirable to see a good player leave the program after three years and make no mistake, Williams falls into that category. However, the development of TJ Bamba and the development of redshirt freshman Myles Rice looked to make it tough for Williams to increase his playing time for Coach Kyle Smith.
Perhaps this will be a good move for the son of former Cougar great Gus Williams. He seemed to have a big chip on his shoulder when playing the UW likely rooted in being snubbed three years ago.
With two years of eligibility remaining, Noah may develop his potential in new surroundings. However, it's not likely he's moved to a better team situation. Washington improved a great deal this past season, but that progress pales when compared to the Cougs. Then again, some players are team players and others are simply individuals.
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 ...
