ND Okafor, Ace Glass enjoy career-high scoring nights as WSU cruises to 98-74 win over Southern Utah
PULLMAN — When Washington State is playing its best basketball, when the Cougars are whipping the ball around the perimeter and forcing misses and flying around in transition like heat-seeking missiles shot out of a howitzer, David Riley’s vision begins to zoom into focus.
The Cougs can play “the beautiful game,” the coach calls it, when they’re all on the same page. When point guard Adria Rodriguez is dishing to Ri Vavers, who just came off a screen, which distracted defenders from forward ND Okafor using his 6-foot-9 frame to carve out space around the basket, which caused enough commotion to give Vavers the space he needs to cash out from distance.
Can WSU play that way with regularity? The Cougs’ 98-74 victory over Southern Utah may not do much to quell critics who would say no, considering how overmatched the Thunderbirds looked in Wednesday night’s game, but WSU needed this win. After a 1-3 start to the season, the Cougs were playing some forgettable basketball, particularly on defense. They’re starting to turn those trends around.
On Wednesday, WSU got a career-high 27 points from forward ND Okafor, a career-best 20 points from freshman guard Ace Glass and 14 from transfer wing Eemeli Yalaho, who added 11 rebounds to earn his first career double-double. The hosts lost only seven turnovers and won the rebounding battle by 10, signaling that Riley and assistants did well to address two of the team’s biggest issues last season.
The Cougars did it without sophomore guard Tomas Thrastarson, who Riley called “day-to-day” with an undisclosed injury, which he suffered against Washington last week. Then, less than three minutes into Wednesday’s game, transfer wing Emmanuel Ugbo exited early with what looked like an ankle injury. Riley had no update on him after the game.
Ugbo and Thrastarson have emerged as two of WSU’s best players, perhaps in that order, averaging a combined 26 points and 11 rebounds per game, both shooting better than 40% from deep. Their absences would be costly in next week’s Maui Invitational.
Up by 14 at halftime, the Cougs (2-3) chased a sluggish start with an electric finish, using their physical advantages to make this win possible. With 36 points in the paint, WSU imposed its will on both sides of the ball, turning 14 Southern Utah turnovers into 36 points. Okafor moved defenders to score his points. So did Yalaho. The Cougars looked as physical as they have all season, using a 15-5 finish to the first half to take control.
“I thought it was a step in the right direction, and this team is looking to turn that corner,” WSU coach David Riley said, “to where we’re able to play a consistent 40 minutes. And I thought we were close to that offensively.”
The Cougars needed this win in the worst way. They opened the season with a loss to nearby Idaho, followed that with a blowout setback to Davidson on the road, then got back on track with an easy home win over St. Thomas, only to watch all their progress unravel with a double-digit home defeat to rival Washington. WSU was wobbling, early as it may be, and the club needed something resembling a blowout win over an outclassed opponent.
The Cougars certainly checked that box against the Thunderbirds, who buried three triples in the game’s first seven minutes, taking a six-point lead. But that’s about when WSU woke up on defense. Glass, who finished a remarkable plus-31, carded two steals. He showed a level of defensive physicality he hadn’t in previous games. He turned one steal into an instant basket, finishing through contact for an and-one layup.
“He played both sides of the ball,” Riley said. “I mean, if you go rewatch his minutes, when he first came in, he was an absolute dog on the ball. He was talking, he was moving. When he has that mindset, that’s gonna take him to the next level. There’s no freshman that comes in ready to play all facets of the game, and he’s got more than enough talent to go do it. I thought today was just a great step in the right direction for him.”
“Really, just a chip on my shoulder,” Glass added. “I feel like, just coming in as a freshman, everybody doubted me. So just showing everybody, proving everybody wrong, really. So just coming in, trying to start on defense first. Obviously my offense is gonna flow, but starting on defense.”
That’s the part that the Cougars are still working to shore up. They have yet to hold anyone under 70 points. In their three losses, they’ve yielded an average of 83 points, which won’t fly against West Coast Conference foes. Riley has only coached five games in his second season at Washington State, but that’s been a trend of his teams, whose best traits have all come on the offensive end.
Can WSU become a staunch defensive club? Like with other parts of this team’s development, Riley thinks it will take a bit of time. The Cougs have to find a “balance of playing hard and smart, and I think that we’re showing flashes of it,” he said. In Riley’s eyes, part of the problem happens when players make mistakes that give the opponent open shots, at which point Cougar players “start overthinking, and then they’re able to just get to the paint.”
As his group prepares to compete in next week’s Maui Invitational, where WSU opens with a matchup against host school Chaminade (Division II) on Monday evening, Riley hearkened back to the days of legendary NBA coach Jerry Sloan. In those days, Riley said, Sloan would scrawl all manner of defensive schemes on his chalkboards.
“And once every couple weeks,” Riley said, “it would just say GYFG on there: guard your guy. That’s kinda the mindset that we need at times. We gotta buckle down and take some pride, one-on-one, in making sure that we do our job. I think that’s kinda the next step for us.”