Every year 63 of the teams who make the NCAA tournament will leave it with the sour taste of a loss. That is the double-edged sword of success, and it is a great privilege to experience it.
No. 25 WSU men’s basketball (25-10, 15-7 Pac-12) lost to No. 4 Iowa State (29-7), falling late to a team they were not projected to have had a chance against.
While the first half ended with a 27-27 tie, it was clear already that the Cougs were going to need a miracle to get out of this one. They had been up as much as eight points during the first half but lost the lead with just :45 seconds left in the period.
Jaylen Wells scored 16 points, getting shots from all over the floor. No other Coug had more than four points, and no bench players had scored.
Coming out of the locker room at halftime, it was easy to guess what the Cyclones’ defensive focus would be. 2:20 into the half, the Cougs were already down six points. A few minutes later they had pulled within two, but Iowa State fought them off.
Three minutes after that, Myles Rice got it within one point with a jumper, but the Cyclones responded with back-to-back 3-pointers to pull way ahead. The Cougs were making shots, but Iowa State was responding in kind.
With 8:54 left in the game, the Cougs were down five points. They did not get it closer than that for the rest of the game.
The final score was 67-56. Turnovers and missed 3-pointers plagued WSU throughout the game, as they coughed it up 13 times and shot 21.7% from 3-point range. Iowa State punished nearly every single turnover, scoring 21 points off of them.
WSU, on the other hand, scored only four points on six Cyclone turnovers. Iowa State shot 50% from outside, making several daggers late to stomp out any chance of a Cougar comeback.
Wells finished the game with 20 points, managing only four in the second half as Iowa State focused everything they had on him. Rice scored 13 points, nine of them in the second half, on 60% shooting.
Isaac Jones had only eight in his last collegiate game ever, but he added nine rebounds, two blocks, two assists, and a steal. The team as a whole had eight blocks in the game, playing their way until the bitter end.
It was always going to end this way. If the Cougs had somehow managed the miracle upset against Iowa State, they would have faced a potentially even worse matchup with Illinois. March basketball is about the journey, and it was a great one for the Cougs.
Projected to finish tenth in the conference, the Cougs defied the odds. From beating top-10 Arizona twice to being ranked for the first time in over a decade, WSU men’s basketball has just wrapped up one of the greatest seasons in the history of the program.
Four international players from all over the globe provided significant minutes, coming from Australia, France, North Macedonia and Nigeria. A team that included a cancer survivor, a D-II transfer, a Big Sky transfer and a junior college transfer made their way to the tournament, something that alluded every WSU roster before them for 16 years.
The offseason is rarely fun, especially in the transfer portal era. Already, the Cougs have lost head coach Kyle Smith to Stanford, and there will surely be at least a few transfers out. Coach Smith showed something while he was here, though.
He showed it can be done. Out here in the fields, it is never easy to build a competitive team. The top programs will always get the best prospects, the most successful coaches will get hired away and the breakout stars will usually get paid to go somewhere else.
But it can be done, and all the adversity means it tastes Cosmic Crisp sweet when it eventually happens. There’s only one place in the world to get that flavor.
