Within the span of 24 hours, Cougar women’s basketball lost three players to the transfer portal, punctuated by the latest announcement by point guard Astera Tuhina. The other transfers in the string of departures are guards Jenna Villa and forward Candace Kpetikou.
The roster upheaval comes after freshmen Dayana Mendes and Alice Dart entered the transfer portal just before the Cougars’ second game in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament on March 27. WSU head coach Kamie Ethridge has now lost four players who made starts this season, with Tuhina, Villa and Mendes producing the majority of the starts.
The five total transfers marks the most in a single offseason of Ethridge’s tenure.
The departure of Tuhina, the team’s assist leader and floor general, is arguably the team’s toughest loss. The Kosovo native developed a close relationship with senior forward Tara Wallack over their three years together in the program and Tuhina was the most likely player to take her leadership role in another small senior class next season.
“The past three years have meant everything to me,” Tuhina said in an Instagram post. “I am incredibly grateful for my coaches, teammates and the amazing Coug family who have helped shape me into the player and person I am today. The memories, lessons and relationships I have built here will always stay with me.”
Tuhina was an All-West Coast Conference honorable mention this season and averaged 7.8 points, 3.7 assists and 3.7 rebounds. She was also third in the WCC in assist-to-turnover ratio.
The team’s young core took an especially hard hit by losing three freshmen in Mendes, Kpetikou and Dart.
Mendes was most impressive among the team’s six freshmen, averaging 8.3 points and 5.3 rebounds while earning All-WCC Freshman team honors. After a slow start to the season working back from injury, Mendes started the final eight games of the season and upped her scoring average to 12.3 points. She also recorded four double-doubles this season and was named WCC Freshman of the Week twice.
Kpetikou, a redshirt freshman, was also an important part of the WSU frontcourt rotation. As Mendes developed over the season and Alex Covill missed the second half of the season due to injury, Kpetikou was intermittently used as the starting center. Kpetikou started seven games while averaging 3.4 points and 3.2 rebounds, and earned a Freshman of the Week honor in January.
The transfer move is largely a basketball move for the Nigerian native as her two years at WSU still had a strong impact on her personally.
“Beyond basketball, WSU has given me a sense of belonging that I will always cherish,” Kpetikou said in a post on Instagram. “Being part of the African Diaspora Association and Black Student Union was more than just an extracurricular involvement, it was a home away from home. These groups provided me with a space to embrace my culture, connect with incredible individuals and contribute to something greater than myself.”
Dart, a Brisbane, Australia native, marked the fourth international player to transfer from WSU. The 5-foot-10 guard departs after seeing relatively little action in her first season, appearing in 22 games while playing 4.9 minutes per game. Dart played 15 minutes in the Cougs’ season-opening overtime win against Eastern Washington and was touted as a potential pace-pusher by Ethridge before the season, but was quickly forced into a bench role.
The only American among the initial transfers was Villa, who was the second-most consistent starter behind Tuhina, starting 29 of 35 games. Villa, a homegrown product from Arlington, Washington, averaged 5.6 points and 2.5 rebounds in 21.6 minutes a game. While not the strongest scoring threat, Villa’s perimeter shooting and energy on the floor will be missed and deal a big blow to the team’s guard depth.
After the second round WNIT loss to North Dakota State and the initial transfers of Mendes and Dart, Ethridge wished the players the best and said the team had to move on.
“Obviously losing players in the portal is the reality in this day and age and it certainly affects our team in an emotional, physical, mental and every imaginable way through no fault of players that choose to go into the portal,” Ethridge said. “This is the time it opened and if they feel that’s what they’re going to do, it’s probably best for the team going forward to move on and start dealing with your own issues and where you’re going to look to go.”
Ethridge also did not shy away from joining the chorus of coaches concerned with the portal’s opening date conflicting with postseason basketball.
“I’ll be one of the other coaches that just continues to to stress and hope that they will move this portal opening day to after everybody’s season’s over,” Ethridge said. “I think it’s an awful situation for teams that are still trying to play.”
The portal opened March 24 and closes on April 22. For the next month, Ethridge will have to have a busier spring than she ever has to rebuild a suddenly thin and still young roster.
