As WSU prepares to host Santa Clara, Cougs might be considering lineup changes

PULLMAN – Washington State may not make the NCAA Tournament this season, its hopes of a second consecutive at-large berth dying weeks ago amid this midseason spiral, but the Cougars still have a few things to play for.

They’re trying to move up from the West Coast Conference’s No. 7 seed to No. 6, earning a bye to the conference tournament’s third round. They’re trying to send out their seniors on the right note. In a new college sports ecosystem, they’re trying to give the players that might get lucrative name, image and likeness offers in the offseason a reason to stay.

As they try to accomplish all of that, changing up their starting lineup has become a possibility.

“Talked about it,” WSU coach David Riley said after his team’s loss to Gonzaga on Wednesday. “When you look at those guys, they produce at a very high level, and we’ve won with them. I think there’s just little tweaks we’ve got to make.

“I mean, you could flip it around and just look at our bench production and say it hasn’t been good enough the last seven, eight games as well. There is something to do with finding the right combination of players, but also we just gotta get all those guys playing more consistent to know what we’re going to get every night.”

As WSU prepares to host Santa Clara on Saturday afternoon, a lineup change might be on the minds of Cougars coaches, whose team has lost seven of its past eight games. Since sophomore guard Isaiah Watts returned from injury in late January, he rejoined the starting lineup immediately, bumping freshman guard Tomas Thrastarson back to a bench role.

Against Gonzaga, Watts hit two 3-pointers and scored 12 points in a team-high 35 minutes. After hitting one 3-pointer in the first half, Thrastarson scored nine of his 12 points in the second half, including a three-point play and another 3-pointer to finish 2 for 2 from beyond the arc.

Since Watts’ return from injury, Thrastarson’s minutes have dropped by about 10 per game, going from the low 30s to the low 20s on average. It makes sense in some ways, coaches opting for Watts’ experience in the Pac-12 over Thrastarson’s lack at the college level.

But on a team with little depth, if coaches are considering making a change in their starting lineup, it’s likely the two-guard spot is where they would look first. Whatever decision WSU makes needs to be the right one against Santa Clara, which has won four of its past five games, looking to follow a 28-point win over the Cougars with another triumph in Pullman.

“Looking back at that Santa Clara game, we didn’t guard them,” Riley said of SCU’s 93-65 win on Jan. 23. “They were really comfortable, and they got going in the second half, hit a bunch of 3s. We gotta guard. We gotta get our defensive mindset back and let that lead to our offense. And I think when you look at our numbers the last month or two, that side of the ball has dwindled.”

The numbers bear that out. Since Jan. 1, WSU’s defensive rating of 110.9 ranks No. 253 nationally, per Bart Torvik. That’s eighth in the WCC, ahead of only Pacific, Portland and San Diego. In that span, the Cougars are allowing opponents an effective field-goal percentage of 54.3%, which is No. 298 in the country.

It’s no secret WSU has been decimated by injuries, which has taken wing Cedric Coward out for the season, caused Watts to miss 10 games, stolen 18 games from wing Rihards Vavers and shelved freshman guard Marcus Wilson for the season. But even as they lack in the depth department, the Cougars’ defense has suffered, a key reason for their loss at Santa Clara last month.

To turn things around on the Broncos, WSU will need to play better defense on 3-pointers, where Santa Clara hit 13 of 32 shots, including a 5-for-7 effort from reserve big man Johnny O’Neil and a 3-for-7 outing from senior wing Adama Alpha-Bal, who added 16 points.

WSU wing LeJuan Watts recorded just the program’s second triple-double in that game, posting 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, but it went to waste. The Cougars might not need him to put up another triple-double, but they will want to improve on defense, where some of their worst habits have developed this season.

“We just gotta push through,” LeJuan Watts said. “I think we can finish the rest of the season strong and go to the tournament strong. Hopefully, we can start winning and scaring every team so we can get in the tournament aggressive, but yeah, we just gotta pull through for Santa Clara. I think we can do that.”