It’s an old sports adage: defense wins championships. While that may indeed hold true in college basketball this season, for WSU men’s basketball sophomore forward Junior Longrus, defense wins a spot in the starting lineup.

Longrus has slowly become the primary defense force in the paint for the Cougars, despite being the fourth tallest man on the roster. So far this season, Longrus has come off the bench and drawn defense assignments of Pac-12 post players such as Angus Brandt, Dwight Powell, Jordan Loveridge, and Perris Blackwell, among others.

However, it was only in the last two outings against Colorado and Utah that Longrus found himself among the starting five players, his first appearance since a disastrous 60-25 loss against Arizona. In that game versus the Wildcats he played 26 minutes and led the team in scoring with six points and two steals. In last Wednesday’s loss against the Buffalos, he played 24 minutes then followed up with 30 minutes in Saturday’s loss to the Utes.  

The most intriguing aspect of Longrus’ game is that he finds a way to be impactful without being statistically dominant. So far he’s averaged just 3.8 points and 3.7 rebounds per game.

“Junior is really important and what impresses me about him is just like the other day against Washington, a lot of the things that he does on the court, do not get translated to the stat sheet,” head coach Ken Bone said. “He gets a tremendous amount of deflections. He’s there on the catch if we’re doubling a guy, which is hard for other guys to recognize. He’s a very cerebral player.”

Longrus’ cerebral approach to the game allows him to hone in on doing the smaller, unnoticed things like being present on help defense and getting deflections on defense. Longrus said that is a point of emphasis for both himself as well as first year assistant head coach Rod Jensen, whom Longrus called “a defensive guru.”

“With him it’s all the little things, feet position, being not here but half a foot over,” Longrus said. “It helps when he asks you to do those little things, but when you do those little things he shows that he appreciates that. His passion makes it easier for us to get out there and play hard.” 

It’s not just Jensen from whom Longrus draws defensive principles. His father, Richard Longrus Sr., had a saying that Junior has brought to life with his play: “No big thing can exist without a bunch of little things happening.” He said he believes one of his most useful attributes is his high basketball IQ and his ability to anticipate plays on defense before they develop.

Along with the rest of the team, Longrus is in his first season under the new team defense the Cougars implemented for the 2013-14 campaign. The team took some time to get acclimated to the defensive scheme orchestrated by Jensen, but Bone said Longrus was one of the first to comprehend the new philosophy.  

“It’s indicative of who he is and how he is in the classroom,” Bone said. “He picks up things quicker than all of us. Whether it’s the defense of the offense, different schemes during the course of the game or writing an English paper, he’s pretty sharp.”  

Longrus described the new defense as aggressive and atypical for a Pac-12 team. He said while other teams tend to “pack it in” and prevent driving lanes to the basket, the Cougars’ defense is predicated on denying ball reversal, applying pressure and thwarting the opposition’s initial plan of attack.  

A man who loves a challenge, Longrus said he takes pride in being the man called upon when the opposing team’s big man imposes its will.

“As a competitor you look for stuff like that,” he said. “For me it’s fun when people doubt you. I’m 6-7, he’s 7-foot. I know I can be successful, so it’s all about me going out there and doing all the things I gotta do. It’s just exciting. I’m gonna take pride in everything I do, whether that’s playing post (defense) or making a turkey sandwich.”

This approach has led Longrus and the Cougars to the Pac-12’s third-best scoring defense, surrendering 66 points per contest. This has WSU sitting at No. 11 in the conference standings with 2-9 record in Pac-12 play. While most would point to the poorly scoring offense, where WSU ranks last in the conference, Longrus highlighted defense as the way to salvage this team’s season.

“As a team we’re really now focusing on limiting the gaps between our good possessions on defense,” he said. “We’ll go two or three possessions where we’ll play lights out (defense), and then we’ll have a silly breakdown, give up a (offensive) board or get a deflection and not come up with the rock.”

Sustaining the quality level of defense for 40 minutes is the key to improvement, he added.

Until then, whether or not he’s in the starting lineup, Longrus will continue to buy into the coach’s system and do the minor things to have a major impact on the Cougar defense.