The Cougar offense continues to excel, despite slow starts.
After a sloppy turnover-filled start to the 279th Battle of the Palouse, a fired-up David Riley called a timeout. The Cougars missed their first three field goals and three turnovers in the first three minutes of play. While Riley’s timeout didn’t completely flip the offense, the Cougars would eventually find their groove and fly past their early scoring pace. WSU, despite scoring only 11 points in the first 10 minutes, ended up hitting 90 points for the third straight game and defeating the rival Idaho Vandals 90-67.
Last season, WSU (3-0) only scored 90 points twice, needing overtime to eclipse that mark in one of those games. Now they have their third straight game of five players scoring double-digit points and are averaging 93.7 points per game as a team. What makes tonight’s performance even more impressive is that their leading scorer, Cedric Coward, only scored four points tonight and didn’t even put up a shot in the second half. Coward did, however, deliver defensively with a career high five blocks.
Tonight, it was LeJuan Watts’ turn to show off everything he can do on the court.
The 6’6 forward sophomore recorded 16 points, grabbed 14 rebounds, and took over the game in the second half, scoring 10 straight points for WSU to push the Cougar lead to 15. Watts bullied Idaho’s Jack Payne inside, putting him on the ground with his strength and getting past him for tough bucket after tough bucket. The exclamation point to Watts’ 10-4 run came on a thunderous put-back dunk to get the Beasley Coliseum on its feet.
LeJuan Watts slams it back home! Juan gets up on the glass and shoves it back down. Vandals want a timeout as the Coug lead becomes double digits!#GoCougs // ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/8UkCcTdt5Q
— Washington State Men’s Basketball (@WSUCougarsMBB) November 12, 2024
ND Okafor made his Cougar debut and put both his offensive and defensive abilities on display early. The Cal transfer threw down hard dunks on one end and erased dunk attempts at the other.
ND Okafor is mad at the rim tonight! The junior transfer puts it down with force and the Cougs are cruising…#GoCougs // ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/yQMFmHa6oT
— Washington State Men’s Basketball (@WSUCougarsMBB) November 12, 2024
For scout notes: ND Okafor will meet you at the rim. You probably won’t win that battle.#GoCougs // ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/OFMizqZCjp
— Washington State Men’s Basketball (@WSUCougarsMBB) November 12, 2024
After two incredible offensive performances to begin the season, it looked early on as though WSU would finally have their clunker and just needed Idaho to keep missing shots to make sure they could keep pace. Yet they scored an absurd 79 points over the final 30 minutes. Although it came against an Idaho team that has been among the worst in the nation defensively, this offense continues to prove it is legit.
Next will be the biggest test of the young season as the Cougars will travel to Moline, Illinois, to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes in the John Deere Quad City Hoops Showdown.
