A tough road trip lies ahead for Cougar basketball.

Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams will be on the road this weekend and will go head to head with some challenging teams.

It is uncommon for both teams to be on the road at the same time. If one is away, the other is usually home.

The men’s team recently fell to Utah 71-92, a performance that director of athletics Bill Moos described as a “sub-par effort.” The team then went on to play the University of Colorado, again coming up short in points and losing the game 70-75.

“What it came down to was missed free throws,” Moos said.

A standout was Conor Clifford, who came to age and showed everyone what can be expected from him from now on. Clifford, a 7-foot-tall redshirt junior, plays center for the Cougars.

The men will be traveling to southern California this weekend, where they will play the USC Trojans and then the UCLA Bruins.

The women’s team will also find themselves in California this weekend, but a little further north. They will play Cal Friday at 6 p.m. and Stanford Sunday at noon.

Stanford is currently ranked No. 12 in the nation as well as No. 5 in the Pac-12.

The women recently fell to the University of Washington Huskies, who are currently ranked No. 3 in the Pac-12. It was a close game, with only a six-point deficit making the final score 63-69. Freshman Borislava Hristova led the scoring for the Cougars with 13 points.

Hristova was named Freshman of the Week for the second week in a row.

Moos credited the team with being good enough to make it to the NCAA tournament beginning in March.

All of the upcoming games will be available to watch on the Pac-12 Network.

Football season may be over but as Moos and KXYL Good Morning Northwest anchor Derek Deis joked, football season is never really over on Cougar Calls.

Moos discussed his recent encounter with nine new recruits here on campus as they visited Pullman with their parents.

“They all seemed really excited to be Cougs,” Moos said.

The parents seemed excited too. With WSU being the clean and safe campus that it is, parents always seem to love it.

“If it were up to the parents, (WSU would) get every recruit in the country,” Deis said. “There’s no real reason not to come to WSU.”

Reporting by Payton Dineen