On Thursday, 58 basketball players will hear their names called in Brooklyn during the two-round 2023 NBA Draft. Several more will sign undrafted free agent deals and begin their NBA journeys on active rosters or in the G League.

Two Cougs, Mouhamed Gueye and Justin Powell, shed their remaining college eligibility and are all-in on the prospects of pursuing an NBA career.

Projections from CBS Sports do not show Gueye getting selected, but with two NBA teams forfeiting their second-round NBA Draft picks because of breaking the rules of negotiations with free agents (The Chicago Bulls and Philadelphia 76ers) there will be plenty of opportunities to make an NBA or G League roster after the Draft.

Gueye (and even Powell) could still very well be drafted. Gueye had back-to-back All-Pac-12 seasons and Powell was one of the sharpest shooters in the Conference.

Coug fans will find out where they can hear which NBA teams will soon be adding “Washington State” to their roster bios at 5 p.m. Thursday on ABC.

Golf 

Last week, I highlighted a former Husky who won the Canadian Open. Nick Taylor’s 72-foot putt is just as unbelievable today as it was last week and the fact that he is the first Canadian-born player in 69 years to win the Canadian Open is also still shocking.

Today, however, I bring you another champion golfer from a rival Pacific Northwest university. Wyndham Clark, the former University of Oregon Duck, won the U.S. Open Sunday in Los Angeles. 

Clark lost his mother 10 years ago and considered quitting golf. Needless to say, he did not and is now a U.S. Open Champion.

Baseball

This first item has nothing to do with the Cougs but affects sports fans everywhere.

Oakland Athletics fans staged a reverse boycott June 13 as over 27,000 A’s fans packed the Oakland Coliseum to show that fans still cared about the team, but did not appreciate owner John Fisher’s aggressive relocations strategies as he seeks to move the team to Las Vegas.

The situation may sound familiar to Washington state residents as 15 years ago, the Seattle SuperSonics owners attempted and succeeded a similar relocation strategy of alienating a fanbase, tanking the team and getting out of town. In 2008, the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder.

Read more about this in the Daily Evergreen.

Ryan Walker continues to excel for the San Francisco Giants. Walker played at WSU from 2015–18 and made his major league debut in May.

In a pivotal weekend series against the Giants’ bitter California rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Walker provided 1.1 innings of scoreless ball as he took the ball for the second and third innings in a Giants’ bullpen day, in which eight pitchers covered 11 innings.

Giants fans appreciate the pro Coug.

Pro Coug Ian Hamilton was having the best pro season of his career before he got injured. He is set to begin a rehab assignment Sunday for the Yankees.

Around Coug Nation

Armani Marsh is hard at work at the Tennessee Titans camp. Murrow alumna Kayla Anderson took a video of Marsh (No. 25)  in his element.

Cougar football kicker Dean Janikowski donated the proceeds from his “More Than a Kick” efforts to a Pullman woman battling cancer on behalf of his family’s foundation The Heather Janikowski Foundation.

For every PAT and Field Goal made, supporters pledged to donate to the foundation and the community rallied around Dean’s efforts in an April fundraiser and auction at Zeppos. This all led to Dean supporting Molly Rice and her fight against cancer.

That’s all for this week. Good luck to Mo and Justin in the NBA Draft and Go Cougs!