WSU HOSTS COLORADO IN THURSDAY BOUT
The Washington State women's basketball team (13-14, 4-12 Pac-12) welcomes Colorado (7-20, 2-14) in a Thursday showdown at Beasley Coliseum. The Cougars and Buffaloes will tip off at 7 p.m. with a free webcast of the game available at wsucougars.com. The game, which is the front end of the final regular season series of the regular season, will also be broadcast on the Washington State IMG Sports Network with Steve Grubbs on the call. The first 400 fans to Thursday's game will receive a Play4Kay t-shirt as part of WSU's 'pink game' to raise breast cancer awareness. Fans can also follow along on Twitter with @WSUWomensHoops.
ABOUT THE BUFFALOES
Colorado enters Thursday's game with a 7-20 record this season and a 2-14 mark in conference play. Led by head coach Linda Lappe in her sixth season, the Buffaloes are coming off of a 21-point victory over California, their second conference win of the season. CU is led by a trio of double-digit scorers in Jamee Swan (14.1 ppg), Kennedy Leonard (11.8 ppg), and Haley Smith (10.4 ppg). The Buffaloes are a young team, like the Cougars, with seven underclassmen. The Cougars hold a slight advantage over the Buffaloes in the series history, picking up a 74-66 victory in Boulder, Jan. 4.
TWO MINUTE DRILL
Eleven times this season Washington State has played a game that was within two possessions (six points) in the final two minutes. In six of those games the Cougars were leading, and in five games they were trailing. WSU owns a 5-6 record in such games. The Cougars are 4-2 when leading in the final 120 seconds and 1-4 when trailing down the stretch, having pulled off a last-second comeback at Arizona last Sunday. In addition, WSU was within two possessions of pulling off upsets of then-No. 16 Stanford and then-No. 9 Oregon State with less than four minutes remaining. The Cougars are 1-5 in games decided by five points or fewer.
BLOCK PARTY
WSU has swatted away 111 attempts by opponents this season, averaging 4.1 blocks per game. The total is more than all but one team in WSU history and with two regular-season games to play and at least one Pac-12 Tournament game, the Cougars are on pace to break the school record by over nine blocks. Redshirt-freshman Nike McClure headlines the Cougar frontline with 24 blocks this season, fourth-most by a freshman in program history and 13th in the conference this season.
AWA FINDING HER FLOW
Senior Dawnyelle Awa has proven to be a competent leader on the Cougar hardwood over the past four seasons. With 124 games under her belt (t-fifth in school history) and 106 career starts (fifth in school history), the Hawaiian native has found her name sprinkled throughout the WSU record book. Awa leads the team in assists (82) and steals (48) this season and currently sits seventh in school history with 346 career assists.
BORISLAVA 'BOBI BUCKETS' HRISTOVA
True freshman and three-time Pac-12 Freshman of the Week Borislava Hristova has turned heads in her first season with the Cougars. The Varna, Bulgaria native is leading the team with 16.1 points per game, second-best in the conference by a freshman and sixth-best overall. Hristova most recently moved into the top spot in WSU freshman history with 178 field goals made, 16.1 points per game, and a .895 (51-57) free throw percentage. She is on pace to set the program's freshman record in total points, just 24 points from Lia Galdeira's all-time mark of 459 points. Hristova has reached double-digit scoring figures 23 times this season and already holds the all-time record at WSU for best career free throw percentage at .895 (min. 50 made FTs). Eight times this season Hristova has scored at least 20 points, breaking a freshman record that had stood for over 26 years.
LAST TIME ON THE HARDWOOD
Mariah Cooks buried a free throw with 3.4 seconds left at Arizona, Feb. 21, giving the Cougars a 62-61 victory over the Wildcats. Trailing by two with five seconds left in regulation, Cooks slid to her right and rebounded a missed free throw from teammate Nike McClure, slammed the ball once onto the hardwood, and laid in a left-handed hook shot with four Arizona players around her. As the game-tying field goal fell to the bottom of the net, a whistle sounded as Cooks was fouled by Wildcat player LaBrittney Jones. Cooks stepped to the line and sunk the game-winning free throw to give WSU its first victory since Jan. 15.
COMING UP
Washington State concludes its 2015-16 regular season with a Saturday showdown against Utah. The Cougars will honor their four seniors prior to the 11 a.m. tipoff at Beasley Coliseum.
COUGAR FRESHMEN CONTRIBUTING EARLY
Washington State welcomed one of its most talented recruiting classes in June Daugherty's tenure with the signing of its three 2015-16 freshmen. Borislava Hristova currently leads the team with 16.1 points per game. The Varna, Bulgaria native dropped 30 points on San Jose State, becoming just the second freshman in WSU history to reach the 30-point plateau. Maria Kostourkova has proven an inside threat, averaging 4.2 rebounds per game and 5.2 points per game. Kostourkova led the team with a career-high 17 points against Colorado, Jan. 4. Alexys Swedlund dropped four 3-pointers against California to aid the Cougars, finishing with a career-high 16 points, and is currently averaging 4.7 points per game.
COUGARS' DEPTH SHINES
The Washington State women's basketball team is the deepest it has been in nine years, according to head coach June Daugherty. Ten Cougar players have played in all 27 games, and nine players are averaging over 10 minutes per game. WSU's bench players have outscored the opponent's bench 22 times this season and the Cougar reserves are currently outscore opponent reserves by an average of 14.2 points per game.
DAUGHERTY REACHES 100 WSU WINS
Head coach June Daugherty earned her 100th-career win at Washington State with the Cougars' 74-66 victory at Colorado, Jan. 4. Daugherty has guided the WSU program to a 103-175 record over nine seasons in Pullman, becoming the third coach in Cougar history to reach 100 WSU wins. Sue Durant boasted a 134-99 record in nine seasons (1974-82) and Harold Rhodes guided the Cougars to 194 wins over 17 years at WSU (1983-99). Daugherty is no stranger to success, having reached 400-career wins last season, and currently owns a 416-389 record over her 27-year coaching career.
DAUGHERTY DOMINATES FOR DECADES
Head coach June Daugherty has proven to be successful across the Pac-12 Conference and beyond. When she earned her 100th win Jan. 4, she became the first coach in conference history to win 100+ games at multiple Pac-12 schools (Washington). Daugherty also became one of three active coaches at a Power-5 conference school to have guided three different Division-I programs to 100+ wins. Daugherty boasted a 191-139 record while at Washington and registered 122 wins in her time at Boise State.
RECORD WATCH
Senior Dawnyelle Awa recorded two assists in WSU's win at Arizona, Feb. 21, putting her comfortably into seventh place in school history with 346 career assists. Awa, along with senior Mariah Cooks, have each played in 124 games during their time on the Palouse. The mark pushes the duo into a tie for fifth place in career games played at WSU. If both seniors play in the two remaining regular-season games and opening Pac-12 Tournament game, they will sit in a tie for third on WSU's all-time games-played list (127 games), and just two games shy of the school record held by former teammate Sage Romberg (129). Awa made her 106th career start against the Wildcats, fifth-most all-time at Washington State. If Awa remains in the starting lineup for the duration of the season, she will finish third all-time in school history for career starts. Senior Taylor Edmondson has made 76.5 percent (78-of-102) of her free throws during her WSU career. The mark is currently ninth-best in school history, after the New Mexico native began the season tied for seventh with a .769 clip.
THE “UNITED NATIONS OF BASKETBALL”
The 2015-16 Cougar basketball team is represented by student-athletes from seven different countries and five different states. Head coach June Daugherty regards the team as the “United Nations of Basketball.” The Cougars have five student-athletes from Europe compared to six for the rest of the Pac-12 Conference combined. Of the conference's six Australian student-athletes, two of them don WSU uniforms.
AWA TO PARTICIPATE IN WBCA PROGRAM
Senior guard Dawnyelle Awa was selected this month to participate in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's “So You Want To Be A Coach Program” program. The highly-competitive program is a collaborative effort between the WBCA and the NCAA to provide female student-athletes with an experience that becomes the foundation of a successful coaching career. The program assists female collegiate basketball players who are interested in pursuing a career in coaching women's basketball with professional development and career advancement through education, skills enhancement, networking, and exposure opportunities, while increasing awareness regarding the availability of talented female basketball players who want to coach.
LATE PRESIDENT FLOYD HONORED
Washington State University's late president Elson S. Floyd, who passed away in June after complications from colon cancer, is being honored this season by WSU student-athletes with a black 'ESF' patch on team uniforms. The Cougars' basketball uniforms don the patch on the right side of the chest.
