WSU comes back to earn 87-86 win over Pepperdine thanks to frenzied closing stretch
PULLMAN – In moments tough and easy, David Riley leans on Ethan Price for his basketball abilities and more.
Washington State’s fourth-year power forward has played hundreds of games, first at Eastern Washington and now at WSU, which is the kind of experience that makes him so valuable for the Cougars.
Price has scored in double figures in 17 of 26 games. He’s often the first to speak up and compose the group when things are headed south.
It’s the main reason why Riley has given Price the nickname “Mr. Consistent.”
“He’s our steadiness,” Riley said, “and this team needs a lot of that.”
In that way, Riley was hardly surprised to see Price seal WSU’s 87-86 win over Pepperdine Saturday afternoon by blocking the Waves’ buzzer-beating attempt. Price was mobbed by his teammates in the corner, nearby where he swatted Pepperdine wing Stefan Todorovic’s final shot, helping the Cougars end a five-game losing streak before a crowd of 3,957.
It was the end of a wild sequence for WSU (16-10, 6-7 WCC), which closed the game on a 9-1 run, overcoming a seven-point deficit with 90 seconds to play.
Down as many as 12 points – the lead the Waves grabbed with six minutes left – the Cougars turned up their defensive pressure in the final moments to capture their first win since Jan. 18.
“Just really happy we walked away with the win,” Riley said. “Our guys did a great job those last six, seven minutes of coming together, playing tough obviously, and made some momentum plays. But just the togetherness that we had, I think, is what we need to carry us through the rest of the season.”
With 1:30 to play, Todorovic hit a wing 3-pointer for an 85-78 lead, good for his 30th point of the night. But that’s when things switched for WSU, which followed with an easy layup from guard Nate Calmese, who totaled 16 points, the fifth Cougar to score in double figures.
That cut WSU’s deficit to five. On the other end, Pepperdine guard Moe Odum – who scored 18 points and hit 4 of 5 3-pointers – missed an open floater, freeing up WSU wing LeJuan Watts to coast in for a layup. In a matter of 32 seconds, the hosts had scored five straight points and faced an 85-82 hole with just inside a minute to play.
After the Cougars came up with a steal and couldn’t turn it into points, they fouled Pepperdine forward Boubacar Coulibaly, who missed two free throws, keeping it a one-possession game with 42 seconds to play. That gave WSU guard Isaiah Watts a chance to take the game-tying 3-pointer, which he knocked down on the right wing.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Riley said. “I don’t remember the whole possession. I think it was a skip pass over there, or something like that. I don’t know – a lot of the stuff we do is not drawn up. There’s some stuff we tell them to look for, but it’s our guys making reads.”
“ ‘Zay’ took a perfect shot,” LeJuan Watts added. “I think we live with that if it goes in and if he misses it.”
Watts then fouled Waves guard Zion Bethea, who made 1 of 2 free throws for an 86-85 lead with 25 seconds to go.
On the other end, Isaiah Watts got another clean look at a corner 3-pointer, but he missed – only for WSU forward Dane Erikstrup to tie up Todorovic. With the possession arrow in the Cougars’ favor, they got another crack at winning.
LeJuan Watts didn’t waste his opportunity, beating Pepperdine wing Dovydas Butka under the basket for an easy layup. WSU took the lead with 11 seconds left. Thanks to Price, the Cougars never let it go.
“I just think we stayed resilient,” said Isaiah Watts, who scored 15 points and hit four 3-pointers. “We obviously went through a tough stretch, but it was a learning stretch. I think we learned a lot through these past five games, especially that Oregon State game. We played so hard and we pushed ourselves and didn’t pull it off. But today, I feel like we kind of played with that same energy down the stretch.”
Price’s block capped a stretch of fine defense from WSU, which hardly looked the part for the first 35 minutes. The Waves shot 48% from the floor, and every time the Cougars put together a couple of promising moments, they couldn’t sustain it because they couldn’t get stops.
That followed the Cougs around nearly the whole night. They yielded 30 points to Todorovic, 19 to Butka, 18 to Odum and 15 to Coulibaly, unable to string together the stops they needed to get back in the game.
Only when the Cougars kicked off their press did they fortify their defense, which keyed their comeback.
Whatever the reason, though, WSU needed the win. The Cougars’ skid hit five on Thursday with a road setback to Oregon State. They had only five turnovers in that game, the program’s fewest since February 2016, an encouraging development for a group that has struggled with taking care of the ball. But it wasn’t enough for a win.
With the victory, the Cougars move into seventh place in the WCC, one spot away from a top-six spot, which would give them a bye through the first two days of next month’s conference tournament.
They will need to win the tournament to make a second consecutive NCAA Tournament. Triumphs like these bolster Riley’s belief his group can do so.
“We’ve gotta use this,” Riley said, “and understand what it takes with the fight, with the togetherness that we need, and use that going down the stretch.
“Because I felt like we’ve – especially early in the season – there’s been times I felt like we’re the best team in the West Coast, when we’re clicking and we’re playing together.”