Lamb Won’T Elaborate On Her Exit

Maybe it was being benched in the second half against St. Mary’s.

Maybe it was her nagging ankle injury. Maybe it was her diminishing minutes. Or the fact that after starting 54 straight games for the Washington State women’s basketball team, Tricia Lamb found herself on the bench.

Or maybe Lamb discovered that she didn’t fit into new WSU coach Jenny Przekwas’ system.

Whatever it was, it was enough to make the first-team All Pac-10 player walk away from the Cougar program. So now the cover girl of the women’s basketball media guide has joined the cover boy of the men’s basketball media guide in exile of Cougar athletics. And just as Blake Pengelly did less than a month ago, Lamb walked away from WSU athletics without revealing why.

“I am leaving the team for personal reasons,” she simply said Tuesday.

Not leaving basketball like Pengelly did. Just leaving WSU basketball.

Lamb, the former prep star at St. John-Endicott, will transfer. Where she will go is as cloudy as why she is leaving.

Przekwas, who reportedly had terse words for Lamb following the blowout loss to St. Mary’s, did not wish to speculate on why Lamb was leaving.

“The reasons for her are personal and I would like not to elaborate on that,” Przekwas said.

What the coach can’t dance around is the fact that without Lamb, the Cougars could be facing a long Pac-10 season. Washington State is already 3-7 heading into Friday’s Pac-10 opener at USC.

“It’s very difficult (to lose a player) at this time of year,” Przekwas said. “She has been a very key player for the Cougars for two and a half years and certainly the team is going to have to make some adjustments.”

Lamb had struggled early this year in averaging just 7.2 points per game, less than half of last year’s averaging of 16.4. Speculation was that the ankle she had surgery on last April was giving her trouble.

Przekwas said Lamb finished up rehab on the ankle in October. When asked if the ankle injury had been a factor in Lamb’s lack of production this year Przekwas said, “I’m not certain about that.”

But certainly 32 percent shooting and being shut out in two games this year were aberrations in Lamb’s illustrious, if short, WSU career. Before this season Lamb had never failed to score in 54 games as a Cougar. She entered the season with 99 career 3-pointers, which put her fifth on WSU’s career list.

Before all of that, she led St. John-Endicott to a state championship and was named a USA Today preseason All-American prior to her senior year at St. John-Endicott. Now Lamb and all her accomplishments and talents have to be replaced

“She will definitely leave a gap,” Przekwas said. “And we will need other people to step forward and look for perimeter scoring and perimeter rebounding.”

Lamb will remain at WSU through the spring semester on athletic scholarship.