WASHINGTON STATE COUGARS (15-8, 5-5) at SAN FRANCISCO DONS (17-6, 7-3)
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2025
7 p.m. PT (10 p.m. ET)
San Francisco, Calif.
War Memorial Gym at
The Sobrato Center (5,300)

COUGAR RADIO NETWORK
KXLY 920AM | KHTR 104.3FM
KTTH 770AM | KONA 610AM
Play-by-Play: Chris King
Analyst: Craig Ehlo

OPENING TIPS
1. WSU looks to get back on track at War Memorial, Saturday, Feb. 1, against San Francisco. The Cougs and Dons are scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. on ESPN+ in a rematch from WSU's 91-82 win  over USF in Pullman. WSU has played the Dons twice in San Francisco with two wins.
2. LeJuan Watts became the second Coug in program history to record a triple-double, scoring 20 points with 11 rebounds and a career-high 10 assists at Santa Clara, Jan. 23. Watts' triple-double was the first of his career, the second all-time at WSU after Kyle Weaver's 14-pt, 13-rbd, 10-ast performance at Stanford, Jan. 13, 2007.
3. WSU ranks top-25 in the country in four team categories: 10th in 2-point FG% (.588), 11th in FG% (.495), 12th in effective FG% (.572), and 24th in assists per game (17.0). The Cougs are 33rd in blocks per game (4.9). Individually, Nate Calmese ranks 14th nationally with 153 field goals.
4. Nate Calmese leads WSU's active roster with 16.4 points, 4.4 assists, and 2.0 steals per game. The junior transfer leads the WCC in steals, sits fifth in scoring, and sixth in assists per game.
5. Isaiah Watts returned to action at Pacific, Jan. 4, for the first time since Dec. 18 at Washington, when he injured his non-shooting hand and missed 10 games.

LAST TIME OUT
Washington State lost to Pacific, 70-68, Thursday night at the Spanos Center, suffering 3-straight losses for the first time this season. Dane Erikstrup led the team in scoring with 17 points with a season-high four assists and season-high four steals. Nate Calmese added 13 points and two assists in his 70th college game. Isaiah Watts returned after missing 10 games with a hand injury, rejoining the starting lineup. Watts scored eight points with two steals, a block and an assist. The teams played a back-and-forth game that featured 11 ties and 10 lead changes with the Tigers taking the decisive lead with five seconds to play on the final field goal.

LAST TIME VS SAN FRANCISCO
WSU defeated the San Francisco Dons, 91-82, Jan. 4, at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman. Wazzu played its first WCC game at Beasley Coliseum, improving to 3-0 in Conference. Five Cougars scored in double figures, led by LeJuan Watts with a career-high 24 points and team-high 12 rebounds for his sixth double-double. Ethan Price scored 20 points. Erikstrup scored 18 points with a WSU career-high nine rebounds. The Cougs shot a season-high 41 free throws, finishing with a season-high 34 makes and a then-season-high 82.9% at the charity stripe.

PICK YOUR POISON
The Cougars have distributed scoring across the majority of the playing rotation with all five starters averaging 10+ points through 23 games. At least four Cougs have scored in double figures 13 times, while six different individuals have tallied 20-point performances. Nate Calmese sits fifth in the conference in scoring.

SHARING THE ROCK
The Cougs dished out 24 assists in the win over Portland, Dec. 28, matching the season-high with the most single-game assists in six seasons. WSU boasts a 13-4 record when tallying 15+ assists, most recently suffering a fourth loss with 17 assists at Pacific. In contrast, the Cougs are 2-4 when delivering fewer than 15 assists, recently falling to Saint Mary's, Jan. 25 with 13 assists.

UP NEXT
WSU and OSU meet in Corvallis in the only meeting this season between the two remaining Pac-12 schools, live on ESPN2, Thursday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m. PT. The Cougs and Beavers have been playing basketball since January 1907, back when Corvallis State Agricultural College beat Washington State College, 30-14, in Pullman. Since then, the Cougars and Beavers have played 306 times, tied for the 6th-longest series in college basketball history. The Beavers hold the all-time record 174-132, while WSU found recent success with five straight wins and seven of the last eight victories.

'ZAY RETURNS AS STARTER
Isaiah Watts, the only returning letterwinner from the 2023-24 roster, returned from an injury in his non-shooting hand suffered at Washington, Dec. 18. Zay returned after missing 10 games at Pacific, Jan. 30. The sophomore is on pace to quadruple his scoring, rebounding, assists, and steals output from his freshman season. In just 10 games, the West Seattle sophomore  eclipsed his freshman season totals in points, rebounding, steals, and assists. Three times this season Isaiah has surpassed 20 points, including a career-high 22 points against Eastern Washington.

RIM PROTECTORS
The Cougar team leads the WCC and ranks 33rd in the country with 4.9 blocked shots per game. WSU boasts two of the top 10 shot blockers in the conference with Okafor at fourth (1.3) and Erikstrup at 10th (0.9). As a team, WSU has swatted away a league-best 113 shot attempts, 25 more than the next-closest WCC team.

DIFFERENT KINDA COUGS
WSU is built different this season, regularly playing with four or all five men around the perimeter, a different look from the 2023-24 Cougs, which played with two bigs inside most nights. The change has results in higher field goal percentages everywhere on the court, including a larger portion of points coming from beyond the arc and more efficiency around the rim. The Cougars rank 10th nationally in 2-point FG percentage.

FLOOR GENERAL CALMESE
Nate Calmese leads the Cougars in scoring, steals, and assists. The junior leads the WCC in steals (2.0) and sits top-10 in the league in scoring (fifth) and assists (sixth). Calmese has seen all his ballhandling statistics improve over three seasons, including increases in assists from 2.0 to 4.4 per game (+120%); steals from 1.2 to 2.0 per game (+67%), and rebounds from 2.5 to 3.2 per game (+28%).

'JUAN, TWO, THREE
Coach Riley prophesied LeJuan Watts as a triple-double threat, which rang true with the sophomore's first-career triple-double and just the second triple-double in program history, Jan. 23, at Santa Clara. Watts delivered his third 20-point game, to go with 11 rebounds, and a career-high 10 assists. Kyle Weaver tallied the first triple-double in WSU history, Jan. 13, 2007 with 14 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists. Watts has led the Cougs in rebounding 15 times and ranks seventh in the WCC with 7.4 rebounds per game.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Ethan Price, a senior transfer from Eastern Washington, has started all 123 games of his career for Coach Riley. The Englishman delivered a career-high 28 points, Jan. 9, against Pacific, with a career-high six 3-pointers. Price surpassed 1,000 career points during his junior season with the Eagles. Early this season, Price dished out his 200th career assist and the senior most recently surpassed 500 career rebounds to become the first Cougar player since Kyle Weaver (2004-08) to record at least 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, and 200 career assists.

EFFICIENT IN THE ARC
WSU boasts the top 2-point percentage and effective FG percentage in the WCC. The Cougs' 2-point percentage of 58.8% ranks 10th nationally, while their effective FG% of .572 ranks 12th in Division-I as of Jan. 31. In the Nov. 18 win over Northern Colorado, the Cougars shot 76.7% from 2-point range, the highest single-game 2-point percentage by a Wazzu team since December 9, 2007, when the Cougs shot 76.7% from inside the arc against Portland State (26-40).

NONCONFERENCE SUCCESS
The Cougars concluded the nonconference schedule at 10-3, earning 10 nonconference wins for the first time since 2010-11, a group that ultimately reached the NIT semifinals with junior Klay Thompson. Coach David Riley became the first WSU first-year head coach since Ken Bone in 2009-10 to win 13 of his first 17 games. Riley became the third coach in Coug history to start 13-5 or better in his first season on the Palouse.

TINKERING WITH TEMPO
The Cougs are averaging 80.0 points per game, second in the WCC behind Gonzaga and 55th nationally. WSU is 5-6 when being held under 80 points. By contrast, the Cougs are 10-1 when scoring at least 80 points.

TOMAS TEASES TALENT
With a short bench and Isaiah Watts injured, true freshman Tomas Thrastarson made his first career start against Northern Iowa, Dec. 21, and held the starting spot until Watts return Jan. 30. The Icelandic native delivered a season-high 17 points and six rebounds in the WCC home opener against LMU, Dec. 30. The freshman has gone on to score in double figures three times, averaging 7.1 ppg in WCC play.

ERIKSTRUP EXCELLENCE
Dane Erikstrup has started every game as a Coug and scored a WSU career-high 24 points in WSU's win over his former team Eastern Washington, Nov. 21. Erikstrup made a homecoming in the Cougars' inaugural WCC game, playing his 80th career Division-I game at Portland, Dec. 28. Since WCC play began, Erikstrup has delivered career-highs in rebounding three times, including his first Cougar double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds in the win at San Diego.

OKAFOR BACK ON THE FLOOR
Redshirt-sophomore ND Okafor, a transfer from California, played his first minutes as a Coug in the Nov. 11 win over Idaho. Okafor missed the first two games due to concussion protocol. In his Cougar debut, Okafor delivered a career-high 12 points, with six rebounds, a block, and a steal. Okafor ranks fourth in the WCC with 1.3 blocks per game, recording at least one block in 17 of 21 games played. In the Nov. 15 game against Iowa, Okafor pulled in five boards to eclipse 100 career rebounds. Okafor has twice matched his season-high in WCC play, scoring 12 points in both meetings with Portland.