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WSU Men's Basketball

As January ends, what does Washington State’s NCAA Tournament resume look like?

From left, Washington State center Rueben Chinyelu, guard Myles Rice and guard Jabe Mullins react during the second half Saturday at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman. (Geoff Crimmins/For The Spokesman-Review)
From left, Washington State center Rueben Chinyelu, guard Myles Rice and guard Jabe Mullins react during the second half Saturday at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman. (Geoff Crimmins/For The Spokesman-Review)
By Greg Woods gregw@spokesman.com(509) 459-5587

PULLMAN – Kyle Smith isn’t one to ignore the noise. Washington State’s head coach acknowledges that with every big game his team wins, every Quadrant 1 victory the Cougars secure, they inch closer to breaking a decade-long drought.

WSU hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament field since 2008, when Tony Bennett was the coach and Klay Thompson was still a high school phenom. Many of the current Cougs were toddlers at the time.

Now they’re in charge of helping their program return to the tournament. They’ve put together a nice resume. Here, we take a look at how things are shaping up – and what the Cougars need to do to punch their ticket come March.

The good

Washington State, No. 41 in the NET rankings and No. 45 in KenPom’s rankings as of Tuesday, has earned two Quadrant 1 wins, the most important of their kind – over Arizona on Jan. 13 and over Colorado on Saturday. Their victory over the Wildcats, ranked No. 3 in the NET, will almost certainly stand as a Quad 1 victory. It will be the brightest spot on WSU’s resume.

WSU’s win over Colorado will also likely stand the test of time. The Buffaloes start a future NBA lottery pick and have a favorable stretch of schedule coming up. Expect the Cougs to keep that win earmarked.

The Cougars (15-6, 6-4 Pac-12) also own a win over Utah, which has recently slid in the NET rankings, prompting the win to drop from Quad 1 to Quad 2. The Utes have a couple of tough games coming up – against Arizona and Colorado – but with a few wins in February, they could climb back into the top 30, shuffling the win back to Quad 1.

In December, Washington State defeated Boise State in Spokane, which was a Quad 1 victory – until the Broncos tumbled under the No. 50 spot in the NET rankings, the neutral-site threshold for a Quad 1 win. The Broncos’ schedule coming up isn’t easy – three of their next four games are against KenPom’s top-41 teams – but it is conceivable that they rise back to No. 50 or better by season’s end.

On Saturday, WSU visits Washington for an evening tip-off. Headed into the game, it’s a Quad 1 opportunity for Washington State, because UW stands at No. 75 in the NET rankings. Problem is, that’s the end of the Quad 1 spectrum, and with a loss, the Huskies would fall in the rankings – and turn WSU’s win into a Quad 2 victory.

The Cougars will have to hope the Huskies can rise back to No. 75 or better by the end of the season.

The bad

The biggest blight on WSU’s resume is its road loss to California on Jan. 20, which at the time was a Quad 3 loss, the second worst of its kind. In the games since, the Golden Bears have ascended to No. 133 in the NET rankings, improving the Cougs’ loss to Quad 2.

For WSU, that’s the good news in the bad news section. California remains on the edge of the NET No. 135 mark, the threshold for a Quad 3 loss for WSU. The Golden Bears can do the Cougars a favor by continuing to jump up those rankings.

Then there’s the problem of Washington State’s weak strength of schedule. KenPom ranks the Cougars’ nonconference schedule No. 319 nationally, with a figure of -5.96. In their five-game homestand in late November, four of the teams the Cougs played came in ranked No. 254 or worse.

That helped them race to a nice start, but now they’re feeling the effects. For WSU, making the most of its Pac-12 schedule has become paramount, particularly because from now on, its Quad 1 opportunities become few and far between.

Here is a list of those:

• At No. 75 Washington on Saturday

• At No. 52 Oregon on Feb. 10

• At No. 3 Arizona on Feb. 22

That’s three road games, and we know that even if the Cougs knock off the Huskies this weekend, that win will likely drop from Quad 1 to Quad 2. Oregon is 10-1 at home this season. Arizona is 10-0 on its home floor.

For the Cougars, winning the majority of the rest of their games will become vastly important. They can also boost their resume by winning a game or two at the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas in March. With a tougher nonconference schedule, WSU might have avoided such a situation, but here the Cougs are.

Another problem facing the Cougars: Can they remain on the right side of the bubble, particularly with so many Pac-12 teams in similar situations? Colorado and Oregon are fighting for spots like WSU is. Utah might be in the same boat, depending on how the Utes finish out the year.

What are national media saying?

In the latest update from Joe Lunardi, ESPN’s resident NCAA Tournament guru, Washington State made a cameo in the First Four Out category. That means to Lunardi, the Cougs are somewhere in the No. 69-72 range – just outside of the field of 68.

At CBS Sports, where Jerry Palm is in charge of the Bracketology, WSU is in the tournament as a No. 11 seed, facing No. 6 FAU. That’s in the East region, where there is no play-in game, so Palm is higher on the Cougs than others.

The Washington Post has WSU pegged on the outside looking in, as one of the last few excluded.