It was the long game that paid off for Washington State in the Mouhamed Gueye sweepstakes.

One year after pulling in one of the top classes in program history, Kyle Smith and Washington State show no signs of slowing down on the recruiting trail.

Jim Shaw, a 25-year coaching veteran who’s spent the last two seasons on Washington State’s bench, has been elevated to the title of associate head coach, the school announced Monday.

LAS VEGAS – In a postgame interview after a 64-59 loss to Arizona State at the Pac-12 Tournament, Isaac Bonton indicated he has still unfinished business at Washington State.

LAS VEGAS – Let’s try this again.

One of them is averaging 19.5 points per game in Pac-12 Conference play – the second-highest mark in the league. The other is coming off the most productive weekend by a Washington State player in program history.

When evaluating Thursday's game between Washington State and UCLA, it may be easy to revert to the first contest between the Cougars and Bruins in order to anticipate what will happen in the rematch.

Most of the time, the advanced analytics used by Washington State’s coaching staff measure how a basketball team performs when it’s on the court, finding value in various aspects of the game that tend to go underappreciated by others.

Few teams in the Pac-12 Conference have been mired in a losing streak like the one that's followed Washington State's basketball team for the last 22 days.

He’s been the engine of Washington State’s offense this season, averaging a conference-high 21.7 points in Pac-12 games, but Isaac Bonton recently approached coach Kyle Smith with a play call that had nothing to do with high ball screens or pick-and-rolls.

BERKELEY, Calif. – Most of Washington State’s basketball players hadn’t left the general Palouse region in at least six months – let alone for a basketball game – before boarding a plane for the Bay Area on Wednesday. Understandably, Kyle Smith was anxious to see how a young team with three freshman starters would fare in a setting other than the one that played host to the first nine games of the season.

Jim Shaw wears two hats for Washington State’s basketball team: full-time assistant coach, part-time rehabilitation specialist.

John Andrzejek will be the first to confess it was a shot in the dark. Even with all the channels of communication available to college basketball coaches and the players they recruit in 2020, there’s no handbook for how to track down a 17-year-old kid who grew up in the Delta State of Nigeria, moved to Senegal to polish his game at the African branch of the NBA Academy, then hopped across the Indian Ocean to train at the Centre of Excellence in Canberra, Australia.

They’ve shot the ball at a higher clip, they’ve sustained their intensity on the defensive end and they’ve used their interior size to rebound the way they’re expected to as a Pac-12 basketball team playing against inferior opposition from conferences like the Southland, Big Sky and SWAC.

Kyle Smith says the moment might call for a toast.

Washington State coach Kyle Smith gave the Cougars' 71-68 win over Eastern Washington the "gutsy" label.

When the defending Big Sky Conference champion Eagles visit the Cougars on Saturday night at Beasley Coliseum, it will be the first time the regional men's basketball programs have met since 2012.

The offseason came with mixed results for Kyle Smith.

Washington State men's basketball coach Kyle Smith has tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss the Cougars' season opener against Texas Southern, according to a press release from the school.