WSU Women’s Basketball vs. Utah (Recap)

The Utah Utes women’s basketball team (16-13, 8-10) stunned Washington State (14-15, 5-13) on Saturday afternoon 75-69 in what was a gutsy, second-half comeback win in both teams’ regular season finale.

WSU Women’s Basketball Pac-12 Tournament Preview

In just six days, the Washington State Cougars women’s basketball team will head across the mountains to Seattle for the annual Pac-12 women’s basketball tournament. Similar to other conference tournaments, the winner of championship game (Sunday, 6:00 PDT on ESPN) will receive an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. Other teams look to use this tournament to strengthen their NCAA and NIT Tournament resumes, while the remaining teams will simply call it a season after leaving Seattle in this single-elimination tournament.
The Cougars (14-14-, 5-12) will head to the tournament as a surprisingly young team with a chip on its shoulder after what has been a disappointing regular season. After starting off non-conference play 9-2, the Cougars have trudged through their conference schedule. They have lost four of their conference games by a combined nine points, exposing a problem head coach June Daugherty and her teams have had the last several years: The inability to close out games. The Cougars endured a nine-game losing streak which was snapped last Sunday after a 62-61 win against Arizona down in Tucson. On Thursday night, the Cougars shot over 55% from the floor and defeated the Colorado Buffaloes, so if anything is going Washington State’s way, it’s that they have some momentum heading into next week’s tournament.
The Cougars’ struggle this season is not a surprise when you consider they took a blow offensively by losing leading scorers Tia Presley and Lia Galdeira last summer. While Presley was a senior and graduated from WSU, Galdeira, a junior, opted to sign a professional contract with Haskovo 2012, a women’s team located in Bulgaria. However, as the Cougars lost one star to Bulgaria, they gained another from the same country. Enter freshman guard Borislava Hristova, otherwise known as “Bobi Buckets” to her teammates. Tapping into the international recruiting market like the Cougars have done time and time again, Hristova came to Pullman ranked at the No.1 overall international collegiate recruit, according to NetScouts Basketball International.

The recipient of two Pac-12 Freshman of the Week awards, Hristova leads the Cougars in scoring with 16.1 points per game and a field goal percentage of 45.2, both which land her in the top ten for the entire conference. Success doesn’t usually happen this quickly as it has for Hristova in her situation; usually it takes time for European basketball players to adjust to the higher level of competition in the United States, but Hristova’s production has made her one of the conference’s top scoring threats.

With this production as a freshman, it’s terrifying to think about her potential come her junior and senior seasons.

Washington State still has their regular season finale to play before heading to Seattle for the women’s tournament. They will tip-off against the Utah Utes (15-13, 7-10) on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. on what is Senior Day. Prior to the opening tip, the Cougars will honor their four seniors on the roster: guards Dawnyelle Awa, Taylor Edmondson, Alexas Williamson, and forward Mariah Cooks in what will be their final time taking the hardwood at Beasley Coliseum. The Cougars fell to Utah 73-71 earlier this season in Salt Lake City and a victory over them on Saturday would be a nice ending to the Cougars season.
KUGR Radio will have the live broadcast of Washington State’s games at the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament, which gets underway on March 3 at KeyArena in Seattle.

As of right now, the Cougars are the ninth seed in the tournament meaning they will play the eighth seed in the first game of the tournament on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. This weekend’s women’s basketball game results obviously may change the Cougars current seeding, but they can’t fall any further than the tenth seed and can’t receive a higher seeding than the eighth seed due.

WSU Grabs Much Needed Win

After disappointing back-to-back losses to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and the Nevada Wolf Pack WSU took care of business at home beating Portland State 59-21 in front of an energized crowd at Martin Stadium. Connor Halliday torched the Viking’s defense completing 41 of 62 passes for 544 yards, six touchdowns, and two interceptions. To be technical, Halliday averaged one interception after 30 passes. Nine receivers accounted for a total of 544 yards through the air; however, senior wide receiver Isiah Myers and junior wide receiver Dom Williams combined for a total of 339 yards and 5 touchdowns.

The passing game is the primary reason why WSU won. However, the running game kept the defense off balance to open the passing game. A pair of freshmen running backs Gerard Wicks and Jamal Morrow rushed for 88 yards producing a touchdown, Wicks accounted for the touchdown.

WSU’s defense is a tale of two halves. The first half telling the story of zero points. PSU quarterback Kieran McDonagh had no answer to WSU’s defense. The second half PSU won the battle earning 21 points. McDonagh and senior wide receiver Alex Toureen matched each other for seven catches ending with 100 yards and one touchdown. McDonagh’s final stat line, 31 completed passes in 51 attempts for 269 yards, one touchdown and one interception caused by freshman corner back Charleston White. Senior running back Shaquille Richard ran the ball for 68 yards including one touchdown off of 11 carries.

Instead of heading into week four against Oregon 3-0 as many cougar fans suspected, the reality is a 1-3 record. Despite having one win, WSU improved in certain areas to pick up not only a much needed win but perhaps optimism heading into the coming weeks of college football. The passing game will receive all of the headlines however; the running game is a huge reason as to why the passing game became effective against Portland State. Through the first two weeks WSU earned a total of 44 rushing yards. No matter the type of quarterback and the arsenal he provides, a running game needs to be present. By not establishing a running game an offense will be predictable and vulnerable. If WSU is to have any chance of upsetting Oregon the running game has to be established.

WSU’s defense is very young. Viewers may already have observed this due to the amount of penalties caused. The Nevada and Rutgers game resulted in 19 penalties for 149 yards. The Portland State game provided progression of improvement with seven penalties for 70 yards. If WSU keeps the penalties down by not giving up free yards that is a second box to check in preparation for the Oregon game next week. On the subject of free yards, WSU did not provide PSU any second chances in the fumble category. Should WSU keep the momentum in that category a third box is checked for the Oregon game.

After reading the three areas of improvement: established a running game, cut down on penalties and zero fumbles, readers may wonder, “When is he going to talk about the interceptions?” Interceptions are crucial toward tipping the momentum in a favor of a team. However, interceptions are expected to happen in an Air Raid offense. It is expected for Halliday to throw one or two interceptions a game when he throws the ball sixty or seventy times a game. How do you cut down the interceptions? This goes back to my point of establishing the running game. If the running game is clicking the offense does not become one-dimensional. Doing so, Halliday will be less prone to interceptions and trying to do too much at once.

If all three areas are checked off next week maybe WSU still ends week four 1-4. When playing the number two team in the country you need a lot of things to go your way and a lot of luck. However, a win against other PAC-12 opponents is not out of the question. Turn back to last year when WSU stunned the city of Los Angeles beating #25 USC 10-7, or wins against Arizona and Utah. If you start to look at the cougar’s situation in this scenario then a bowl game is still possible. Perhaps a game against Oregon is too to a lesser extent.

Written By Matthew Segal