Apr. 3—For the bulk of Washington State coach Kamie Ethridge's tenure, it seemed as if the Cougar women's basketball program was immune from the sweeping tides of the transfer portal which had decimated the neighboring WSU men's basketball program year after year.
This year, the WSU women's team has lost more players (six) than the WSU men (four) as of Wednesday evening.
Eight miles east, the Idaho men and women will lose several key pieces to the portal and to graduation after treating Moscow to a quality of college basketball not seen in years.
South, in the L-C Valley, the Lewis-Clark State Warrior women and men maintained their standard of excellence, advancing to their respective conference finals and appearing in the NAIA Tournament.
Below is a summary of each local college basketball team's season and what may be in store next year.
Up-and-down year for WSU men
There is only one other coach who won more games in his first season on the Palouse than WSU coach David Riley did.
And those 26 wins carried Tony Bennett to the NCAA Tournament in 2006 after he took over the Cougar basketball program from his father Dick Bennett.
Riley took the reins of a program fresh off the NCAA Tournament that lost its entire starting lineup and all but two players, rebuilt the roster in a matter of months and still managed to win 19 games.
Naysayers will point to WSU's easier West Coast Conference schedule relative to the classic Pac-12 and inconsistent defense as detractors.
However, the Cougs (19-15) secured key wins over Bradley (Missouri Valley Tournament runner-up), Nevada and Boise State (Mountain West Tournament runner-up) to jump out to a 13-3 start before the injuries to key contributors Cedric Coward and Isaiah Watts stalled the Cougars' progress and led to WSU dropping 12 of its final 18 contests, including an 85-82 loss to Georgetown on Monday in the first round of the College Basketball Crown, a new college basketball postseason tournament.
After three years at the helm of Eastern Washington, Riley brought four players with him from Cheney to Pullman, including Coward, sophomore LeJuan Watts and senior posts Ethan Price and Dane Erikstrup. The former Eagles paired well with Washington transfer point guard Nate Calmese to form a lethal offense, but WSU struggled to grab enough rebounds and saw its defense suffer.
The Cougars were in the top 20 in the nation in field-goal percentage (ninth, 49.11%), assists per game (19th, 16.9) and inside-the-arc accuracy (seventh, 58.2%) but 234th in rebounds per game (34.2).
With three starters graduating and two more — Calmese and LeJuan Watts — in the transfer portal, Riley will once again have to replace the program's entire starting lineup from the year prior but figures to retain younger players such as Lapwai High School alum Kase Wynott.
Wallack cements her place in Wazzu women's record books
Four-year Coug Tara Wallack became the program's all-time leader in minutes played with 4,017. Wallack posted career-best numbers as the lone senior on the roster.
With just three upperclassmen and a diverse roster (13 players representing 10 different countries), the Cougars experienced some growing pains in Year 7 of the Ethridge era and in the first year without program legend Charlisse Leger-Walker.
The Cougars won 20 games for the third straight year, qualified for the postseason for the fifth straight year and produced multiple all-conference players in their first season in the WCC.
Wallack earned first-team All-WCC recognition and sophomore Eleonora Villa (13.6 points per game), and junior Astera Tuhina (36.4% from 3-point range) earned second-team honors.
The 21-14 Cougars lost five games to the top two teams in the WCC, Portland and ...
