WSU men’s basketball (4-4, 0-2 Pac-12) hosted the Northern Kentucky Norse (5-5) Wednesday. The Cougs got the win 68-47, looking much better in every aspect of the game.

After a tough loss to Utah where the Cougs shot very poorly from three, there was nowhere to go but up from outside the arc. While WSU only shot 33% from 3-point range, that was a massive improvement over the 13% they shot against Utah.

This game was a story of dominance, both individual and team-wide. The Cougs out-rebounded the Norse by 29 and had 14 offensive rebounds to the Norse’s one. At halftime, Mouhamed Gueye was leading the entire opposing team 5-4 in rebounds and the Cougs were up 39-23.

The scoring for WSU was led by TJ Bamba who had 22 points on 8-for-12 shooting. Others in double-digits were Justin Powell with all of his 11 in the first half and Gueye with 14 points to go along with his 10 rebounds for a double-double.

Standing out off the bench for the Cougs was freshman guard Kymany Houinsou. He had 6 points and dished out six assists, and was part of a strong defensive effort team-wide.

Focusing on the defense, the Cougs were great throughout the game. Bamba was covering NKU’s leading scorer and the 17th-highest scorer in the country Marques Warrick and held him to 10 points on 33% shooting, 14 points less than his season average.

The Norse also has Chris Brandon, the 12th-best rebounder in the country. The Cougs held him to only one board all game.

This game was by no means perfect, but it was as good a win as you can ask for from a team missing so many vital players. The Cougs had 16 turnovers, and while the Norse failed to capitalize significantly on those it is still a bad habit that will be exploited by better competition.

Personnel-wise, the Cougs were certainly still sorely missing Jabe Mullins, who looks to be out another week or so and was on a tear from the 3-point line before he got hurt. If he was there hitting shots and opening up the paint for the other guys, this might have been an even bigger win for the Cougs.

The same goes for Andrej Jakimovski, who remains hurt and will likely be out until in-conference play resumes.

Next up for the Cougs is a string of away games, the first of which is against University of Las Vegas. UNLV is 9-0 with good wins against a few solid teams. It will be a tough one for the Cougs, but if they look anything like they did on Wednesday they should be able to compete.

We will see if they can keep it up at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Fans can watch on FS1.