Jan. 18—PULLMAN — This may be David Riley’s first year as Washington State’s head coach, but it’s hardly his first rodeo in the region. A Seattle native, he spent the first decade-plus of his coaching career at Eastern Washington, giving him some awareness of WSU throughout the years.
That provided Riley with chances to check out Cougars teams led by former coach Tony Bennett, who has always hung his hat on defense. Years later, as Riley guides WSU through its first year of West Coast Conference membership, he still remembers watching the Bennett teams. He wants to instill in this WSU team some of what Bennett did in his.
“They were gonna play their defense and their style no matter what,” Riley said. “They weren’t gonna change it up, and I think we do that offensively. I gotta get a little better defensively, of just trusting our stuff and when we do it, we showed in the second half, we can be pretty dang good.”
Riley was referencing the second half of the Cougars’ 65-61 road win over San Diego on Thursday night, which helped WSU end a two-game skid. That sets the stage for the Cougars’ next game, at home against struggling Portland at 3 p.m. Saturday, and the improvements Riley and WSU will look to make.
It’s the second matchup of the season for the Pilots and Cougars, who earned an 89-73 road win to open WCC play in late December. Since then, Portland (6-13, 1-5) has lost four of five games, ending a four-game losing streak with an overtime win over Pacific on Thursday. WSU (14-5, 4-2) is trying to get back on track after back-to-back setbacks to Pacific and Gonzaga last week.
With a narrow win over San Diego, the Cougars made the first step in that direction, just not in a convincing way. After bolting to an 18-2 start , WSU allowed USD back in the game and then some, watching the Toreros open up a lead as wide as six. It was a struggle all night for WSU, which was held to its lowest point total in a victory this season. Guard Nate Calmese came through with five critical points down the stretch to push his team across the finish line.
“Nate’s a competitor,” Riley said. “He’s been learning how to use that energy in the right ways and use that for winning. I’ve never doubted it. He was not gonna let us lose (Thursday night).”
Spotty as his group’s offense was, though, Riley came away perhaps more frustrated with the defense. USD parlayed 17 offensive rebounds into 13 second-chance points, keeping WSU at bay for much of the game, and three Toreros scored in double figures. The hosts also posted 28 points in the paint.
But Calmese, who matched his season high with 27 points, only had the chance to give his team the lead with his late heroics because the Cougars secured key stops on defense in the final moments. Before he nailed a go-ahead 3-pointer with less than two minutes left, WSU forced a miss, and the Cougars set up Calmese’s encore — a scoop layup to go up four with 19 seconds left — by generating a turnover, the Toreros’ 17th .
“We had some really good stands,” Riley said. “There were four or five possessions in a row, it felt like, where they were at the end of the shot clock.”
For WSU, No. 80 in the NET rankings, that plays promisingly into Saturday’s home game against Portland, a Quad 4 contest for the Cougars. The Pilots are scoring a shade over 71 points per game, third to last in the conference, and they’re shooting 43% from the floor, also third to last.
Under head coach Shantay Legans, who was EWU’s head coach from 2017-21 when Riley was an assistant, two Pilots are scoring in double figures: forward Austin Rapp (13.9 ppg) and guard Max Mackinnon (11.4 ppg).
Those two led Portland against WSU in late December. Mackinnon led the Pilots with 22 points and Rapp followed with 17, making things a tad interesting with a 10-0 run in the second half. But the Cougars had raced to a 19-4 lead and led by as many as 28, so they didn’t need to sweat much to earn the win.
But WSU did get a little sloppy in the second half, with 10 turnovers in those 20 minutes alone, part of why Portland found a way to make up some ground. Maybe if it was an isolated incident Riley wouldn’t worry too much — his team was up nearly 30 — but even after committing only five in Thursday’s second half against San Diego, WSU is committing 15.5 turnovers per game.
That ranks them No. 343 of 355 Division I teams, underscoring how much of an issue it has been for the club. Some of that is baked into Cougars’ offensive identity. They share the ball so much, averaging more than 17 assists per game for third in the WCC, that it creates more chances for mistakes.
WSU guard Isaiah Watts is ramping up for a return from his nonshooting hand injury, perhaps as soon as next weekend, bringing reinforcements to a depleted WSU team. But the Cougars won’t get far without cleaning up their turnovers, 10.3% of which are occurring without a steal from the opponent, No. 349 nationally.
On Thursday against San Diego, WSU lost turnovers when LeJuan Watts traveled walking into a 3-pointer; when Calmese lost the ball in transition and also sailed a pass over forward ND Okafor’s head on a fastbreak; when forward Ethan Price was whistled for an offensive foul; and when Calmese was called for the same in the second half, making a push-off too obvious.
But it’s against foes like Portland, which is No. 317 in the NET rankings, that WSU can correct its mistakes. With games next week against Santa Clara and Saint Mary’s, two of the conference’s best, the Cougars would be wise to do so.