Hello, and welcome to the second ever Wazzu Weekly roundup of Washington State sports news.

This is a collection of the week’s top stories and articles from your dedicated Daily Evergreen Sports Section.

WSU Men’s Basketball

The biggest news of the week is, of course, the return of Mouhamed Gueye to the WSU Men’s Basketball team. Gueye had declared for the NBA draft to test the waters and gain experience, but eventually withdrew from the draft and chose to return to WSU. The Cougs also added Justin Powell from Tennessee and signed French center, Maël Hamon-Crespin. Read more about the state of the WSU Men’s Basketball roster here.

WSU Baseball

While the Cougs ultimately fell short of making the first Pac-12 baseball conference championships, they turned in their third straight winning season thanks to a ferocious month of May in which they won nine of their last 12 games of the season. Read more about their season here and more about the three all-conference players, Jacob McKeon, Caden Kaelber and Jack Smith that helped the Cougs turn things around here. Also, revisit one of the Cougs best wins of the season, their 9-8 walk-off win over Oregon State in Pullman, here.

Daylon’s Daily

WSU high jumper Daylon Hicks talks about his mindset as a collegiate athlete entering his senior season and the goals he has for himself for the summer. Read more here.

Other news

Former WSU quarterback Ryan Leaf was one of 80 players selected for the 2023 College Football Hall of Fame ballot. This is Leaf’s first apperance on the ballot.

“The player may have deserved this some time ago, but the man didn’t. I’m very proud of the man I see in the mirror today,” Leaf said in a tweet.

WSU Track and Field has six Cougs competing in the NCAA Championships this week in Oregon. Micaela de Mello (100 meter hurdles), Aislinn Overby (high jump), and Valentina Barrios Bornacelli (javelin throw) will compete for the women while Colton Johnsen (3000 meter steeplechase), Mitch Jacobson (high jump), and Jacob Englar (pole vault) will represent the men. Read how they got there here.

Gerry Lindgren (WSU ’68) and Henry Rono (WSU ’81)  were inducted as inaugural members of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Collegiate Hall of Fame on Monday prior to the Track and Field Championships, which began Wednesday. Lindgren won 11-straight NCAA titles, losing just one race his whole college career.

Rono won six NCAA titles and set six outdoor records and four indoor records. Two records, his steeplechase (8:05.4) and the 5,000m run (13:08.4) stood at the beginning of the 2021-22 season and steeplechase remains the NCAA record entering the 2022 championships. 

WSU Athletics hired Ike Ukaegbu as the new deputy director of WSU Athletics, Athletic Director Pat Chun announced on Tuesday. 

Ukaegbu comes to WSU after spending the last seven years as senior associate athletics director for compliance at Texas Christian University. He also served on the Athletics staffs of VCU and Boise State among others. Ukaegbu replaces Bryan Blair, who after four years as the deputy director of WSU Athletics, now serves as the Athletic director for University of Toledo.

Michaela Bayerlova is the first Coug in the history of WSU Women’s Tennis to qualify as an All American. She did so by making it to the NCAA Division I Singles Championships Quarterfinals, possessing a 20-3 record in singles and finishing the season ranked No. 19 in the nation. 

Savanna Ly-Nguyen was named the International Tennis Association Northwest Region’s Most Improved Senior. Ly-Nguyen set collegiate career highs in wins (22) in 2022. 

Our staff is small but mighty in the summer. If you are a WSU student with an interest in sports and/or writing, the Daily Evergreen sports section may be the place for you. Apply today on Handshake.

That is all for this week. Thank you for reading and Go Cougs!