PULLMAN, Wash. – The Washington State women's basketball team got a pair of stellar performances from junior Ula Motuga and freshman Charlisse Leger-Walker against Southern Cal on Sunday Feb. 7, but the Cougars went cold down the stretch in the fourth to give the Trojans an 81-71 win over WSU at Beasley Coliseum.
Motuga recorded her second double-double in three games, as the Logan Australia native scored a career-best 25 points, while pulling down a team-high 10 rebounds. Motuga got her afternoon started with a bang, as she scored 11 of her 25 points in the first quarter. The younger Leger-Walker sister collected her second-straight game with 20-or-more points, as the Waikato, New Zealand native tallied 24 points in the loss. Leger-Walker sank a team-best four shots from behind the arc, while she dished out seven assists without committing a turnover in 37 minutes of action.
With the loss, Washington State falls to 9-7 on the year and 7-7 in Pac-12 play. The win over WSU gives Southern Cal its third-straight win, as the Trojans now stand at 9-7 on the year and 7-6 in conference games.
The 24-point performance against the Trojans for Leger-Walker marks her ninth game this season with 20-or-more points, which matches Borislava Hristova's WSU freshman record for 20-point games. It took Leger-Walker only 16 games into her WSU career to match Hristova's record, which took the Bulgarian native 30 games to achieve.
Redshirt senior Krystal Leger-Walker matched her sister's seven-assist total, while also registering seven points in the loss.
The Cougars shot 44.6% in the afternoon, but closed the game missing their final six attempts, as WSU went scoreless over the final 2:35 of Sunday's contest. USC made 50.9% of its shots from the field on Sunday, while the Trojans shot a blistering 60% (6-of-10) in the fourth quarter.
Washington State trailed USC, 65-56, early in the fourth quarter before using a 13-6 run to pull within a point at 69-68 with 4:44 remaining in the game. The Trojans extended its lead to three at 71-68 with less than three minutes left to play, but Leger-Walker would hit a 3-point field goal from the wing to tie the game at 71-all with 2:35 remaining.
That would unfortunately be the final points that WSU would put on the board on Sunday, as the Trojans closed the game on a 10-0 run to collect the double-digit victory over the Cougs.
Washington State got off to a hot start against Southern Cal, as the Cougs held an 18-7 first quarter lead. WSU would end the first with a 22-15 lead, but a 12-3 Trojan run gave the visitors their first lead of the game at 27-25. Southern Cal extended its advantage to seven points at the half and maintained its lead throughout the third period, taking a 63-56 lead over WSU into the day's final frame.
The Cougars will now head to the desert, as they open a two-game road trip in the Grand Canyon State. Washington State begins the trip this Friday in Tucson, as they take on No. 9-ranked Arizona. Tip-off against the Wildcats is set for 6 p.m. PT and will air live on Pac-12 Washington.
Coach Ethridge on Today's Result: "Can't say enough good things about (USC) and how good they were today. We couldn't get a handle of guarding them, the seven three's in the first half really did us in. We were right there at the end. It was a one-point game, a jump ball goes to them, and I thought that was a really big turning-point. They scored after that and it was an uphill battle from there. It's a hard matchup for us. We can't get a handle on USC and that's a credit to them. They played an unbelievable game.
Coug Notes
- Ula Motuga's double-double against the Trojans this afternoon marks her third of the season. She is the first WSU player since the 2018-19 season to record three-or-more double-doubles in the same season. (Borislava Hristova; 5)
- Motuga has now pulled down exactly 10 rebounds in three of her last four games.
- The 25-point performance for Ula Motuga makes her the third fourth WSU player to score 20-or-more points in a game this season. She joins Charlisse Leger-Walker (9x), Krystal Leger-Walker (3x) and Johanna Teder (1x).
- Washington State falls to 18-55 all-time against Southern Cal, as the Cougars have now lost seven-straight games against the Women of Troy.
- WSU concludes its current four-game homestand with a 1-3 mark. The lone win came against No. 5/4 UCLA this past Friday.
- The 24-point performance for Charlisse Leger-Walker marks the second-straight game this season that the freshman has scored 20-or-more points. It is the third time this season that Leger-Walker has scored 20-plus points in back-to-back games.
