Another night of victories.
In a repeat of Saturday night, both the men’s and women’s Washington State basketball teams were victorious over conference opponents.
The men took down Loyola Marymount 73-59 up in Spokane while the women upended Pacific down in Stockton, California, 74-66. The wins move the men to 2-0 and the women to 3-0 in WCC play.
The Cougars and Lions battled for the lead and big cat superiority throughout the first half, with neither holding a lead bigger than four. Neither team went on a run bigger than 5-0 in the first 20 minutes as well. The Iceland native Tomas Thrastarson led the way for WSU in the first half with 11 points—already a career high—on 4/5 shooting from the field and knocked down 3/4 from beyond the arc.
With the game tied at 34 just before the end of the half, Nate Calmese put the Cougars ahead with a floater just before the buzzer.
The Lions retook the lead to begin the second half with a layup and a pair of free throws, but WSU countered with a haymaker 10-0 run. Back-to-back paint buckets from LeJuan Watts, a pair of layups from Calmese, and an exclamation point dunk from N.D. Okafor put the lead at nine for WSU. The good times kept rolling with a 13-5 run to push WSU’s lead up to a game-high 15 points. LMU tried to get back into the game but could never break back within 10 as the Cougars cruised to a 14-point win.
Calmese led all scorers with 20, and Thrastarson set his new career high at 17 points.
Down in California, the women’s team overcame a slow start to grab their third straight conference win. The Tigers jumped out to an early five-point lead and held WSU at arms length through the first quarter. The Cougars battled back and took their first lead since being up 2-1 early on with a Jenna Villa trey to go up 20-19. Pacific, however, held a four-point lead at half thanks to an and-one with a second to go.
Once again, the third quarter was all Cougs. WSU shot 60% from the field and hit 3/5 of their three-pointers in a 24-13 third frame to flip the script. Charolette Abraham got things going with a trey before passing the torch to Ele Villa for a three-pointer of her own. After a pair of Tara Wallack free throws, Ele Villa got right back to work with back-to-back layups to make it a 12-0 Cougar run and give WSU a six-point lead.
The Tigers were able to break back within five to begin the fourth quarter but could never get any closer as WSU built on their lead, getting it all the way up to 12 on their way to a 3-0 WCC start. Ele Villa led all scorers with 20 and Astera Tuhina tacked on 16.
The women will return to action on Thursday when they host Santa Clara and the men will host San Fracnisco on Saturday.