Weekend Recap: Men’s big win over USF headlines Saturday sweep

Another successful weekend for the Cougars.

Another weekend, another sweep for the Washington State Cougars men’s and women’s basketball teams.

Back inside the familiar confines of Beasley Coliseum, the women got the party started with a 66-52 victory over the Oregon State Beavers. A few hours later, the men grabbed a huge win over the San Francisco Dons, 91-82. The women bounced back from their loss on Thursday to Santa Clara, improving to 9-7, 4-1 in conference play. On the other side, the men built upon their impressive start to the year, moving to 13-3, 3-0 in conference.

If you are familiar with how the WCC end-of-season tournament works, you know how important it is for WSU to finish as high as they can, and both teams were able to continue their hot starts to conference play on Saturday. For those not familiar, here’s a breakdown.

Unlike the familiar Pac-12 tournament bracket, and most brackets you’ll see, the WCC has a ladder-like format that heavily rewards their top teams with multiple round byes. There are six total rounds. The top two seeded teams are automatically placed in the semi-finals, making them two wins away from an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Seeds three and four start their climb in the quarterfinals, seeds five and six in round three, and so on. So, the higher WSU can finish in the standings, the fewer wins they’ll need to get in the conference tournament to clinch an auto-bid.

This is a big part of what made the men’s win over USF so massive moving forward. Not only was USF solidly a Quad 2 team in the NET rankings, but they’ve finished in the top four in the WCC twice in the last three years and are projected to be in the mix for a top three seed.

After a back-and-forth first half that saw USF’s Malik Thomas dominate with 27 first-half points, WSU went nuclear midway through the second half. The Dons aggressive defense put them in foul trouble, allowing WSU to get to the line early and often. The Cougars made 19 of their 22 free throw attempts in the second half, good for just under half of their total second half points. WSU’s success at the charity stripe helped build a game-changing 16-0 run to flip a three-point USF lead into an 11-point WSU lead. The Cougar defense stagnated the Dons over the final 10 minutes, holding the Dons to just 16 points down the stretch and forcing a 7:04 long field-goal drought during WSU’s game-changing run.

Thomas had seven points in the second half and ended up fouling out with 4:14 remaining. On the other side, Tomas Thrastarson scored all 10 of his points in the second half, knocking down six of his eight shots from the charity stripe and cashed both of his shots from the field. LeJuan Watts ended up leading all WSU scorers with a career-high 24 points, hitting 11 of 13 free-throw attempts, and hauled in 12 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the season. Ethan Price also tacked on 20 points of his own.

WSU built their lead up to as much as 17 before the Dons were able to cut it to nine before the final buzzer, which somehow came with some controversy. In the post-game handshake line, Dons head coach, Chris Gerlufsen, had some words with David Riley and the refs, appearing frustrated. Those words apparently confused Riley, who gave us excellent meme potential.

“I think they were frustrated about Dane shooting the three. The last two games, we didn’t do it the right way. We shouldn’t have scored. This one, there was a [clock] differential, so I’m not too sure what we should have done there.” David Riley said postgame.

Going back in time, the women’s team put together a solid outing against OSU. Ele Villa led the way with 19 points. Tara Wallack put together her second straight double-double, playing in all 40 minutes, scoring 13 points and grabbing 14 rebounds.

Wallack was all over the court for WSU. Hustling to loose rebounds, diving on the floor, and blocking three shots.

WSU never allowed OSU to hold the lead for a second in this game. While OSU was able to tie it at 3-3 and 6-6 early on, the Cougars dominated the first quarter with a 23-10 lead heading into the second frame, with Wallack and Ele Villa each scoring eight points in the first 10 minutes. The Beavers did threaten in the fourth quarter with an 8-2 run to cut the deficit to 12 and steal some momentum, but WSU quickly erased the Beavers hopes with an Ele Villa three and Wallack free throw to push the lead back up to 16 and finish with a comfortable 14-point win.

A big week starts on Thursday with the women traveling to Saint Mary’s and the men hosting Pacific. Saturday will be the real highlight of the week, with the women hosting the Gonzaga Bulldogs and the men heading to McCarthey Athletic Center for the first time since 2013, renewing their rivalry with the rival Bulldogs.