In a little under a month, the WSU men’s basketball team will begin the 2023 season. While the teams to be played have been known for a while, the team has released a full schedule.
After narrowly reaching a .500 regular season record and a .550 in-conference record last year, the Cougs were forced to reload. Star forward Mouhamed Gueye and starting point guard Justin Powell left for the draft (Go Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers, for now) while the Cougs leading scorer TJ Bamba transferred to Villanova.
A number of new transfers and recruits are here on the Palouse, and along with the group of returning players they now will look to prove they belong in a conference landscape that seems to have forgotten them.
They will get their first chance to prove themselves at home in a reignition of the Battle of the Palouse when the Idaho Vandals visit Nov. 6. The Cougs and the Vandals have a storied history in all sports, but have not matched up on the hardwood since a 2021 Cougar victory. Since the turn of the century the Cougs have won 18 of the 22 matchups between the teams, and they hold a 74-49 lead all time.
WSU will likely see fifth-year senior Isaac Jones starting at center or forward, who transferred to Pullman after years as a star for the Vandals. While the move was not far, it put him on the opposite side of a state border and the opposite side of a rivalry that goes back to 1902. It will be a good opportunity for Jones to show what he brings to the Power Six table for the Cougs.
Just a few days after the Idaho game, the Cougs will host Prairie View A&M. This is the fourth matchup with the Panthers, and the second that will be a part of the Pac-12/SWAC Legacy Series, a program that was established in 2021 to set up basketball matchups between the Southwestern Athletic Conference, which is made up entirely of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and the Pac-12. The Cougs are 2-1 against the Panthers, with that loss last season being a devastating 70-59 blowout that was part of an early season skid that the Cougs only barely recovered from.
Obviously, that cannot happen again if WSU is to be a more serious team than they were last year. If the Legacy Series has taught us anything, it is that despite not being a major conference, the SWAC teams are absolutely to be taken seriously.
Following those two home games, the Cougs will head out to the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off tournament. Only the first opponent of the trip is certain due to the tournament format: Mississippi State. The next game will be against either Northwestern or Rhode Island.
The Cougars are 2-0 all time against Mississippi State, with both games being in the late 2000s. WSU and Northwestern have played one more game than that, with the Cougs leading the series 2-1. WSU and Rhode Island have never met in men’s basketball.
The Cougs follow the Hall of Fame trip with an extended home stand. First, they play Utah Tech Blazers, who they have never matched up with before. After that, Eastern Washington is in town to continue a heated rivalry.
The Cougs took last year’s regular season matchup, but the Eagles got their revenge in the opening game of the NIT tournament, beating the Mouhamed Gueye-less Cougs soundly in Pullman.
The Cougs have only lost back-to-back games against the Eagles one time in matchup history, with the second of those losses occurring during the leadup to the Siege of Bastogne by German forces. That is to say, it has been a very long time. Regardless of history, the Eagles looked good last year. While they lost Steele Venters to Gonzaga, they could certainly put up a fight.
Third on the home stand is Portland State. The Vikings have played the Cougs eight times and have never won. Fourth is UC Riverside, a matchup that has occurred three times and gone Riverside’s way once. Neither of these games should be seriously competitive, but it is college sports. Anything can happen.
Closing off the home stand is another HBCU from the SWAC, Grambling State. The Cougs have played the Tigers three times and have beat the Tigers three times. The average margin of victory in those wins was 35.3 points, but the Tigers were in the SWAC championship game last year, so they could make it interesting.
The final two games before conference play are both neutral-site matchups. The first of these is at the Jerry Colangelo Classic against Santa Clara in Phoenix, Arizona. The Cougs have won five of eight games against Santa Clara all-time, but have taken only one of the last three.
The other game is a little closer to home, but still not a home game. The Cougs will face Boise State in Spokane Arena in the Numerica Holiday Hoops game. This matchup has split down the middle, with each team winning three of their six games. The Cougs have lost two straight game, with one happening in Spokane and another in Boise.
Notably absent from the schedule is a pair of early Pac-12 matchups, as the conference had been scheduling for the past few years. There are some other wrinkles to the in-conference play this year, which will be discussed in a later piece, but for the pre-season slate, all that matters is that it is entirely out-of-conference.
While the conference is where the wins matter the most, setting the tone at the start of the season is important too. Early season woes are what kneecapped the Cougs last year, and to avoid them this year would be the first step en route to a great season.
