Washington State to open 20-game conference schedule Dec. 2 against Oregon State

Washington State will play two Pac-12 basketball games in December before squeezing in a few more nonconference games and returning to a conference-only schedule in January.

The conference released its 2020-21 schedule Thursday morning, roughly a month out from the first Pac-12 games of the new season.

The Cougars will host a multiteam nonconference event in Pullman on Nov. 25 and 27 (times, opponents TBD), with Pac-12 games starting only six days later.

WSU’s first conference game, at home against Oregon State, will take place on Dec. 2. That will be followed by a second Pac-12 game, on Dec. 5, at Colorado.

The Cougars will go nearly a month without another Pac-12 game before beginning conference play in earnest on Dec. 30. Although it’s yet to be determined which games will fall on which date, the Cougars know they’ll start the new year by hosting Arizona and Arizona State the week of Dec. 30-Jan. 3.

WSU then travels to the Bay Area to play Cal and Stanford the week of Jan. 6-10, before another California trip that’ll see the Cougars visit UCLA and USC the week of Jan. 13-17.

The Cougars return home briefly the week of Jan. 20-24 for home games against Colorado and Utah, but return to the road the following week to play a single game against Washington. WSU will then play its sixth and seventh road games in a month’s time the week of Feb. 3-7 when the Cougars visit the Oregon schools.

Kyle Smith’s team will close the regular season out with five of seven games at home. USC and UCLA will travel to the Palouse the week of Feb. 10-14, followed by Cal and Stanford the week of Feb. 17-21.

WSU’s final road trip will take place the week of Feb. 24-28 against Arizona and Arizona State.

The Cougars close out their Pac-12 slate on Feb. 6 or 7 against Washington at Beasley Coliseum.