After Thursday’s win on the road, WSU head coach Kamie Ethridge said her thoughts had already focused on the all-important Gonzaga contest.
Ethridge was right to turn her attention so quick to Gonzaga, as the Cougs fought hard to mount a comeback after only leading once in the entire game, losing 61-69 to the Bulldogs last Saturday.
The schools have a storied history as eastern Washington rivals, including last year’s overtime win at home, but now have the opportunity to face each other twice in a home-and-home series given that they are in the same conference. Gonzaga will also be joining the Cougs in the newly realigned Pac-12 in 2026.
The first quarter saw the Bulldogs jump out to an early lead, one they would hold for the rest of the game. Both teams traded jabs as they came out of the gate with energy and intensity. The teams were separated by just four at the end of the first and a similar story would play out in the second as the Bulldogs again outscored the Cougs by four in the second quarter to go up 33-25 at halftime.
Gonzaga looked in control of the game for much of the first half, commanding the flow of the offense with efficiency and finding open lanes with creativity. The Bulldogs went 5-for-9 from three in the half and outrebounded the Cougs 23-9, which included eight offensive rebounds. Gonzaga scored effectively with an inside-out approach, with star forward Yvonne Ejim punctuating the three-level scoring with nine points halfway through the contest.
The main thing keeping the Cougs in the game was the team’s ability to force turnovers. The Bulldogs had 14 turnovers in the first half alone, created in part by five blocks and six steals by WSU.
Coming out of the half, WSU seemed to bring a new energy on the offensive end, opening up the floor for more opportunities to punish from outside and increased willingness to take tougher shots. While Gonzaga continued on strong through the first few minutes of the quarter, pushing the lead to 11 by the halfway point, the Cougs continued to hang on before an impressive stretch where the team could not miss. The Cougs went on a 9-0 run, scoring three shots from beyond the arc within a minute to cut the lead down to two points with just over three minutes to go.
“We talked at the half about not playing together and I think that was a big emphasis going into the second half,” forward Tara Wallack said. “I think that was just a good example of playing together, moving the ball and finding the open shooters we needed. So I think that segment of that quarter was the best basketball where we were playing together and moving the ball.”
Before the Cougs’ momentum could build any further, Gonzaga head coach Lisa Fortier called a timeout to allow her team to regroup. After the timeout, an Ejim jumper would halt the WSU run and the Cougs would only come within two points of Gonzaga once for the rest of the game. Ethridge would later point to Fortier’s timeout as a turning point for the Bulldogs.
WSU would end their best quarter of the game with just a two-point deficit. Guard Eleonora Villa was a major reason for the Cougs’ success in the third quarter, scoring 10 points and two of the Cougs’ four three-pointers in the quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs would return the favor, coming with the highest amount of energy they had displayed until that point. Gonzaga guard Allie Turner, a freshman, scored back-to-back threes after an Ejim layup to punctuate an 11-2 run that ran through the first half of the final frame. A couple of jumpers from Villa and a pair of layups from center Alex Covill allowed the Cougs to hang around, but the team was clearly on its last leg. Gonzaga continued to pound the glass and force WSU into tough shots in the fourth.
Gonzaga scored 20 points in the final quarter behind 4-for-7 shooting from three and 7-for-14 from the field.
“Just a genius timeout by Lisa and we had back-to-back-to-back turnovers,” Ethridge said. “I just finally thought we got out of our little bit of a slow speed. I thought we took punches all night, we weren’t as physical, we didn’t match their physicality and we didn’t match their energy.”
The Bulldogs got excellent production from the players they have come to rely on this season in Ejim and Turner, the team’s two leading scorers. Ejim had 17 points and eight rebounds, while Turner had 20 points and six rebounds while going 4-of-10 from three, continuing her lights out three-point shooting as she is shooting above 40% this season. Villa highlighted Turner and the inside game that opens up space for shooters like her.
“I think that the big problem for us today was both to deny catch and shoot from outside, for example with Turner, but at the same time we had to also deny the inside pass and so that was kind of hard because we were trying to do both,” Villa said. “But when you have more inside then the space is more open for snipers and so I think that we kind of had the problem to balance between those two.”
“It’s just something we have to keep working on where they put so much pressure on you to rebound on their end,” Ethridge said. “They take a lot of chances and send it seems like everybody to the boards. They got a lot of second chance points or opportunities and we had nine total rebounds at halftime. Again their physicality and their energy just overwhelmed us I thought in the first half.”
“Coach just said in the locker room ‘they were more savage than us’ and they had players who didn’t take possessions off and they wanted to win, they wanted the rebounds and they just wanted to win more,” Wallack said.
Wallack and Covill had 12 points a piece, but Villa continued her role as the team’s most proficient and dynamic scorer with 24 points. Villa played all 40 minutes along with Wallack, and went an impressive 5-for-9 from three.
