Plagued by foul trouble, WSU drops 68-61 decision to USC, extending losing streak to five

Across about two hours in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, Washington State did a lot of things right, turned around lots of issues that have plagued the club in games past.

In a road test against USC, the Cougars guarded well, especially on the perimeter. In the second half, they limited turnovers, which is re-emerging as a problem for this team. And they forced Trojan standout Chad Baker-Mazara to take 13 shots to score 19 points.

But it added up to a 68-61 loss for WSU, which has now dropped five straight games, a rotten stretch for coach David Riley’s bunch.

“This team is good. It’s just really, really frustrating that we haven’t been able to turn the corner,” Riley said in a postgame radio interview. “It’s hard to turn the corner against a team like USC. I thought we had a great week of practice. We got better this week, and unfortunately, it didn’t show in the results, because we weren’t able to execute like we needed to, especially in that first half, where the game got away from us a little bit.”

At 3-8, WSU is now off to its worst start over 11 games since the 1964-65 season. At that time, the Cougars were competing in the Athletic Association of Western Universities, which went on to become the Pac-12 decades later.

Junior wing Ri Vavers totaled a team-best 13 points on three triples for WSU, which scored the final nine points of the first half, heading into halftime down only seven. In the second stanza, the Cougars drew as close as one, even as close as 61-58 with about 21/2 minutes to go. That came on a corner 3-pointer from Vavers, who is now shooting 46% from distance in his last six games.

But the Cougars didn’t score again until they got a stray garbage-time trey from wing Eemeli Yalaho, who logged 10 points and six rebounds. In between, USC scored seven straight, including six at the free -throw line, where the hosts went 27-for-34. The Cougars sank 10 of 14 foul shots.

Foul trouble played a key part in this one. Four Cougs finished with four fouls: Yalaho, Tomas Thrastarson, ND Okafor and Emmanuel Ugbo. That made it hard for the guests to sustain much momentum.

That was enough to make the difference for the Cougs, who will return to action on Wednesday in Spokane, where they’ll take on Eastern Washington in the newly minted 509 Classic. It’s another chance for Riley to take down his former squad.

But between now and then, WSU will have to iron out a few kinks. Here’s one that may play a more prominent role in the rest of the season: Can the Cougars get freshman guard Ace Glass going again? After erupting for 40 points earlier this season at the Maui Invitational, a freshman scoring record at WSU, Glass has now logged these outputs: 15 points, 15 points, 10 points and three points against USC, whose long athletes made things difficult on the Cougs’ young star.

Part of the calculus involves understanding a freshman’s development. Early in the season, when he was more of an anonymous figure, Glass likely didn’t appear very high on opponents’ scouting reports, which made it easier for him to catch defenders by surprise. That probably changed after his showing in Maui, where he poured in 81 points in three games.

But freshman or not, Glass has become a key part of the Cougs’ offense, which isn’t the same when he isn’t filling it up. He didn’t start on Saturday in Los Angeles, about an hour’s drive from his hometown of Rancho Cucamonga, his first time coming off the bench since Nov. 24 against Division II Chaminade. He tallied 26 points in that game.

WSU’s offense also hasn’t looked the same since Nov. 19, which is when transfer wing Emmanuel Ugbo went down with an ankle injury in the opening minutes. At the time, he was starting and playing big minutes, as many as 29 against Washington. But in his five games since returning to action, his minutes have hovered around 15. He’s scoring about four points per game in that stretch. Is he playing at full strength?

Maybe that’s fair to wonder. Perhaps so is this: How can WSU generate enough offense to overcome those two issues? The Cougs have until Wednesday to find an answer.