Under head coach Kyle Smith, the WSU men’s basketball team has had a consistent stretch of success that, to this point, has not reached the heights of the NCAA Tournament. But as of their last weekend of play, they find themselves right on the cusp of the projected teams to make the Tournament.
The last time the Cougs made the March dance came in the 2007–08 season, back when Tony Bennett led them. With a lot of upperclassmen as their key contributors, the Cougs won two games before being dropped out of the Tournament by the top-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels.
In the early stages of the ‘07–08 season, the Cougs began the season rattling off 14 straight wins, highlighted by a win over No. 17-ranked Gonzaga on the road, 51-47. Finishing the regular season 23-7, WSU went 2-4 against AP top-25 ranked opponents. Overall, the Cougs went 11-7 in Pac-12 play but beat UW in both matches during the season to own rivalry bragging rights.
With four 10.0-plus points per game scorers, Bennett had the team sharing the love on offense, but that side of the ball was far from their forte. Ranked third in the country defensively, teams scored an average of just 56.4 points per game.
Kyle Weaver averaged 1.7 steals per game, Derrick Low had 1.4 steals per game and as a team, they had 218 steals over the course of the entire season. Low also led the team in scoring, averaging 14.1 points per game on 46.3% shooting and 36.4% from three.
This season, the Cougs are not as suffocating on defense, but rank above the bottom-third of offense like their counterparts. Ranking 159th out of 362 teams in points per game and 77th out of the same 362 in points allowed per game, the team is the perfect combination of above-average in both categories while still being led by their defense.
While the ‘23–24 team did not have the preseason expectations of that ‘07–08 team, they had started the season 13-6, one of the best starts to a season since that fabled team. Just once have the Cougs played a top-25 ranked team this year, which was the huge win over then-No. 8 Arizona, a 73-70 win at home.
That win currently has a simple rating system score of 27.89. Put simply, the simple rating system attempts to put into context the strength of a win by taking into account the average point differential and strength of schedule, where the higher the score, the more significant the win, or the more understandable the loss.
In their NCAA Tournament season, the highest SRS win the team had in their regular season was a 14.81 SRS rating in their win over Gonzaga. In their three matchups with an SRS score of above 20, the team went 0-3.
One win does not make a season, but the current rendition of WSU men’s basketball already has an ultra-quality win under their belt, proving they can hold their own and then some in an NCAA Tournament setting.
Leading the Cougs this season is Myles Rice, who is averaging 15.8 points per game, 3.6 assists and 1.7 steals per game on an efficient 46.6% from the field and 35.1% from three. While Low and Weaver had Aron Baynes holding down the interior, Rice has fifth-year transfer center Isaac Jones.
Jones is averaging 15.7 points per game and 7.5 rebounds. While Baynes averaged just 10.4 points and 6.0 rebounds, Jones is playing as the main force on the offensive side of the ball. Both men shot (or are shooting) right around 60.0% from the field and both men averaged (or are averaging) just under 1.0 blocks per game.
Andrej Jakimovski is averaging 10.2 points per game, which is similar to the production of Taylor Rochestie’s 10.4 points per game and Jaylen Wells’ 9.3 points per game and 4.4 rebounds play a similar role to the 6 foot 6 inch Weaver’s 12.2 points and 5.3 rebounds, albeit slightly lower given that he has a lower usage rate than his counterpart.
Going against the national norm, the Cougs have a fairly tall team. Other than Rice at 6 feet 2 inches tall, the six other usual suspects in the rotation are no shorter than Kymany Houinsou, who stands at 6 feet 6 inches tall.
Similar to their ‘07–08 counterparts, most of the team are in their junior or senior seasons, with the big caveat being the freshman at point guard and the freshman Rueben Chinyelu.
WSU has a lot of experience, primarily in Jakimovski and Jones, something that proved vital to their Tournament run from over a decade ago.
Not a perfect comparison, but the current Cougs have a lot in common to the team they are trying to replicate the success of.
