Another Saturday sweep keeps WSU right in the thick of things atop the WCC.
Another Saturday, another sweep for the Washington State men’s and women’s basketball teams.
Both teams won comfortably, with the women defeating the Santa Clara Broncos on the road 74-47 and the men taking down the Portland Pilots 92-70 in Pullman.
Kamie Ethridge’s squad used a dominant second quarter to seize control over the Broncos. The Cougars held Santa Clara to just three points on 1/14 shooting in the second frame while hitting 43.8% of their shots on the other end to take a 22-point lead into the half. WSU cruised in the second half to improve to 7-2 in the WCC and 12-8 overall. Alex Covill led all scorers with a career-high 21 points, taking full advantage of her height over a smaller Broncos team. Ele Villa tacked on 12 points of her own, and freshman Dayana Mendes shined again off the bench with nine points.
Up in Pullman, David Riley and co. had to overcome a slow start before they could get their own comfortable win. The Pilots threw the first punch with a 19-10 lead behind seven points from Bol Dengdit. WSU eventually found their stride and began answering the Pilots buckets with runs to cut into the deficit. LeJuan Watts tied the game at 27, and Nate Calmese gave WSU the lead to cap a 6-0 run. But WSU wasn’t done there. The Cougars took full control of momentum with an 11-0 run to build WSU’s lead out to 12. Portland kept things close in the second half, not letting WSU build their lead past 12 in the first 10 minutes of the second half, but couldn’t break within seven. Watts helped WSU break through that 12-point lead barrier with back-to-back buckets to spark a 9-0 run to push WSU’s lead to 16. Later in the half, ND Okafor, Ethan Price, Dane Erikstrup, and Calmese all pitched in to put the game on ice with a 15-0 run to turn the game from a comfortable win to a blowout. Calmese was the game’s leading scorer with 23 points on an efficient 11/19 shooting.
By this time next week, we will be sitting at the halfway point in the conference slate. The men’s team got some help this weekend with Gonzaga dropping back-to-back games to Oregon State and Santa Clara. Currently, the men are in a three-team tie for third in the WCC with Gonzaga and Santa Clara, but with the tiebreakers, they would be the fifth seed in the conference tournament. Gonzaga has the head-to-head tiebreaker over WSU, but Santa Clara now owns the tiebreaker over Gonzaga, putting SC in third, Gonzaga in fourth, and WSU in fifth. The difference between the fourth and fifth seeds is pretty vast, as the four seed begins their path in the quarterfinals while the five seed starts in the third round.
The women’s team sits in a tie for first with Gonzaga at 7-2, but are slated in as the two seed as Gonzaga has the head-to-head tiebreaker. Saint Mary’s — who WSU defeated a few weeks ago — sits a half game back of WSU at 6-2.
This sets up a pretty important Thursday for both teams. The men’s team will head down to Santa Clara with a chance to put themselves a full game ahead of the Broncos of that crucial 3/4 seeding line and a chance to vault into the three seed if Saint Mary’s take down San Francisco. The women will host the 6-3 (in conference) Portland Pilots with a chance to cushion their lead for the 1/2 seed line.
Saturday will be the real test for the men’s team when they play host to the Saint Mary’s Gaels, who sit atop the WCC at 6-0. The women will travel to Loyola Marymount, who are currently still looking for their first conference win.
WCC standings aside, this is a real chance for both teams to bolster their resume. The men have an opportunity to grab a pair of quad one wins and the women will play a Portland team just inside quad two territory. Though a win for WSU would likely bump Portland to quad three, the Pilots can easily jump back into quad two territory later in the year.
Using Barttorvik’s tourney cast tool, a win for the men over Santa Clara gives them a 1.9% bump to make the tournament. If they complete the sweep and down the Gaels too, that jumps to 13.4%. Should a couple upsets go their way, they could be sitting atop the WCC by weekends end.
With all that hanging in the balance, there’s no reason why Beasley Coliseum shouldn’t have some great energy this week. It will be interesting to see if fans and students still show out for these big games like they did for old conference foes.