Good afternoon! Today, we’ve got a double feature for you, thanks to some personal stuff swirling around my household. No biggie, just stuff that sucks the oxygen out of my writing time.

Sometimes, I just skip the Monday column, but this game seemed like one where I really had to get my thoughts out — so, you’re going to get The Monday After (on a Tuesday).

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Men’s hoops beat Northern Colorado last night, so I’m going to tack on About Last Night after the football stuff.

Buckle up. It’s going to be a long one!

The Monday After: Effed around again, finally found out

I wish I could say that Saturday’s loss to New Mexico was surprising. Did I predict a decisive victory for WSU on the podcast? Absolutely. Did I also massively hedge that by talking about all the reasons why the Lobos were dangerous, saying there was definitely a very realistic and totally plausible scenario in which the Cougars lose the game, which I also reiterated on the Gameday Guide? Sure did!

Of all the unsurprising things — including Devon Dampier running all over the place — the most unsurprising was that the Cougars finally got beat after playing with their food yet again. We here at Podcast Vs. Everyone are huge fans of embracing the concept of randomness in sports, and there could hardly be a better example of that than what we witnessed on Saturday.

I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but there’s a mountain of empirical evidence to suggest that winning close games isn’t actually a skill, at least not on a team level. Teams are not clutch, nor winners, nor whatever term folks typically give to a group of players who seemingly magical power to pull a victory out of the fire. I know that sometimes teams can give that illusion by winning a series of close games, but if those same teams play enough close games, they eventually lose some of them, too.

Because … well … shit happens. Shit happens all the time over the course of a game. Sometimes it’s weird shit, sometimes it’s unlucky shit, sometimes it’s officiating shit, sometimes it’s just your own shit that you step in.

There’s a reason why predictive models place so much stock in scoring margin: The best way for a team to make sure some fluky shit doesn’t affect the outcome is to make sure they’re far enough ahead that it can’t matter.

If you’re winning by two touchdowns, you don’t pay much mind to the shit — like, say, a potential fumble that would have given WSU plus-plus field position that was ruled incomplete and wasn’t even reviewed. I was pretty irritated by that, but also, we were firmly in control and no reason to think that this one (maybe?) bad call would have an effect on the eventual outcome.

But when you’ve dorked around long enough to let the game get close, suddenly that shit really matters.

Or, say, needing a go-ahead TD in the final minutes. You’ve allowed yourself to fall behind after — again — holding a two-TD lead at halftime, so you’re going to take points wherever and however you can get them just to reclaim the lead. It comes in the form of a long TD bomb from John Mateer to Kyle Williams. Hooray! But also … so much time. Unfortunately, you couldn’t be concerned with time.

And in a close game, sometimes the other team makes you pay.

Is that truly “randomness”? In the truest sense of the word, no. But in the sense of “maybe the other team figures it out one more time or maybe it doesn’t,” or even, “maybe the other team makes a colossal mistake to shoot itself in the foot, or maybe it never does,” it is random. It’s not really in your control.

Which is the biggest problem with WSU seeming to be OK with playing these tight contests rather than conducting itself like the bully on the block — which, let’s remember, it is against the teams on this schedule. Turning it loose for 60 minutes does come with its own risks, but there now needs to be an acknowledgement that treating these contests as if they simply need to be managed across the finish line is not risk free, either.

On offense, the Cougars seem so afraid of putting Mateer in a position to make a mistake that they just intentionally throttle him back for large portions of the game. Mateer had one of the best first halves you’ll ever see, but he missed a couple of throws on the first drive of the second half. It was a bummer, but nothing that should have been concerning or changed a darn thing philosophically.

How did offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle respond? Slow down. Run a bunch of “check with me” where the offense gets lined up and sees the defense, then Arbuckle tries to get Mateer into the perfect play. It removes all rhythm from the attack and basically puts the offense on the defensive, reacting rather than dictating — not the position this offense should be in when it is vastly superior to the other team across the board in terms of talent. That’s what teams with inferior talent try to do when they are desperate to try and squeeze something out at the margins.

Predictably, it didn’t work, so … they got even slower! They ran a bunch of conservative, horizontal plays that minimize the chance for a mistake! And they created a death spiral for themselves that they couldn’t come out of … until they were forced to. We’ve seen this story before.

When they needed points, they went faster, became more attack minded, and … MAGIC … they were able to score again. Maybe we should have our foot on the gas for the entire game? I’d certainly rather see us try that than watch us intentionally neuter ourselves for entire quarters.

I understand that I’m making this sound a lot more simple than it actually is. But there are clearly intentional philosophical choices being made during games that get us into these close contests with the likes of Fresno State, San Diego State, and New Mexico — teams who have no business being able to make games close with us week after week. We continually underperform on the road relative to predictive models, and “oh we are just worse on the road” doesn’t really hold a lot of water for me. There’s no logical reason why a team should be this much worse, particularly when each game has followed a relatively predictable pattern.

Jake Dickert talks often about being the aggressor, about taking the game to the other team, and yet the decisions that get made during the game, either by him or his coordinators — particularly after running out to an early lead — trend away from that on the road. For weeks and weeks, the philosophy has not been “let’s see how badly we can whip these guys” and instead “how do we manage this game to simply score enough points to win?” It’s pragmatic … and far less safe than coaches want to recognize.

If you’re inclined to point to the large margins in the home games as evidence to the contrary, I’d challenge you to really think about how those points got scored against Hawaii and Utah State: Lots of conservative play calls while simply marching down the field to the tune of 6.5-7 yards per play. That’s not exactly “explosive,” but it’s certainly is good enough when you’re facing terrible offenses that can’t get out of their own way. Unfortunately, New Mexico does not have a terrible offense. We said over and over during the podcast that the biggest thing that has stopped the Lobos this year was their own mistakes — especially Dampier’s interceptions, of which he had 12 coming into the game.

He threw zero on Saturday.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. There were a couple of balls that were oh-so-close to being picked, including one by Ethan O’Connor that would have been intercepted … if Dampier had actually not made such an awful throw to his receiver. There also was a fumble (not the one that was called incomplete) that didn’t end up in our hands. But WSU couldn’t come up with even one game-changing turnover, which, of course — as I have written before — is the danger of relying on turnovers as part of a bend-but-don’t break strategy: It looks amazing when it happens, but if the other team never makes that massive mistake, it can look real, real bad.

Randomness!

New Mexico just played an exceptionally clean game overall, posting just five penalties for a miniscule 40 yards, with only two penalties and 10 yards in the second half. Should there have been more? Probably! There appeared to be a plethora of holds on the edges as Dampier and Eli Sanders gashed us again and again. But the refs were allowing it (randomness!) and we never adjusted. Instead of defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding doing something different, he continued to guard against the pass(?). As far as that went, it was successful — Dampier completed 44% of his passes — and it also made absolutely no difference in the outcome.

The hardest part for me is that it’s so clear we were and are the superior team, and while superior teams lose all the time, it’s really frustrating when it seems to come about because of coaching ineptitude. This was another game that featured an epic collapse out of halftime, and at this point, I don’t know how you reach any other conclusion than we are simply getting outcoached. It’s so bad that we have an actual name for it: Turd Quarter^TM . The scoring margins in quarters 1, 2, and 4 are massively in our favor; the scoring margin in the Turd Quarter^TM swings massively the other direction.

I’m sure Dickert has devoted a lot of time to figuring out how to change that. He’s a smart guy and exceptionally reflective as far as coaches go. But the time for wondering if these coordinators are truly up for the job has probably come and gone. Yes, the team is 8-2, which is wonderful. But the warning signs for Saturday have been there for a long time, and it finally bit them in the butt.

Which is such a shame. The CFP was always a long shot, but it was on the table. And now it’s not, and it feels like it’s gone because the coaches invited this potential outcome, letting the players down every which way.

What We Liked: We’re still ranked! (By the AP, anyway)

I don’t know how, but we’re still No. 25 in the AP poll. I guess there’s finally a benefit to playing the game after everyone east of the Rockies goes to sleep? At any rate, it’s still awesome, although we won’t have that number next to our name on Saturday’s TV broadcast because we did drop out of the CFP rankings. Womp womp.

Who Impressed: Kyle Williams

OK, this is the one legit positive to come from the game. KW has been criminally underutilized this season, and he finally was thrown the ball enough to shine: 9 catches (on 10 targets) for 181 yards and 3 TDs. He’s now up to 11 TDs on the season, second in the nation.

Someone in our Slack chat (sorry, whoever you are, I don’t remember) remarked that Williams just strikes them as a guy who can make it in the NFL, and I tend to agree — he’s got a great combination of size, speed and hands, and there’s a smoothness to his movements that just make it look like he’ll belong.

What Needs Work: Dickert’s timeout management

I have maintained for years, and I maintain to this day: All football head coaches should have to play something like 1000 hours of football video games so that they are actually prepared to use their timeouts in a way that optimizes their team’s chances of winning. Because literally anyone who has played video games knows that once New Mexico got to WSU’s 20 under two minutes to go, it was time to start seriously thinking about burning those suckers.

To me, the optimal time to start using them was after UNM rushed for 8 yards to make it 3rd and 2 at WSU’s 12 with 1:24 to go — something I was yelling at my TV. At that point, there was no reason to think they wouldn’t get two yards, and after that, no reason to think they wouldn’t get into the end zone. UNM understood that, which is why they (predictably) ran the clock all the way down to 0:51 before snapping the ball on third down. They definitely understood the marginal utility of those seconds for WSU, while WSU’s own head coach did not.

I understand that every coach’s urge — especially a defensive coach — is to believe that they’re going to get those stops, or that the opponent is actually going to be the one hurting for time in the end, and that you don’t want to give them that gift. But it’s the head coach’s job to think of the whole team, and Dickert really blew it by relying on “the book” that he referenced after the game, which provides guidance on the optimal use of timeouts. Having a “book” is actually a great idea; far too many coaches just fly by the seat of their pants. But like any “analytics,”¹ you’ve got to combine your brain with the numbers, and Dickert didn’t do that.

Upon reflection (if I understand him correctly), Dickert said that he would have started calling timeouts after UNM converted the 3rd down. That’s still too late, in my opinion — that would have meant calling a timeout at 0:46. UNM used one of its own timeouts after first down, with 0:38 left. They scored two plays later, leaving WSU with just 0:21. I don’t think that would have made a meaningful difference.

Coaches should always — ALWAYS — be aggressive about saving time if they are behind. Even if you start that last drive with no timeouts, you at least know that you can do things to mitigate that. You can’t mitigate the lack of actual time.

Dickert got schooled in this regard by a much more experienced coach in Bronco Mendenhall. I’m optimistic that it won’t happen again. He said, “Game management, I take really seriously. I study the hell out of that. … And I gotta do a better job of getting John (Mateer) the ball so he can go win a football game.”

I believe him.

Up Next: at Oregon State

Finally, the much anticipated “rivalry” game with the other school left behind by the disintegration of the Pac-12. We’ve more or less been brothers/sisters in arms for the last 14 months as we try to chart a path forward, but Dickert would like for you to not get that twisted:

The full quote isn’t quite as inflammatory as the tweet suggests, as he went on to say: “It’s one of our biggest rivals now. That’s the way I’ve looked at it. That’s not bulletin board material; I hope they would say it the same way. Let’s go compete. We’ve been waiting to compete with these guys. They’ve dealt with a lot of adversity; we’ve dealt with a lot of adversity. … I think it’s an energizing football game. That’s what I mean by that. To know that this is going to be an opponent that we’re going to play for a long time — let’s go do it.”

I agree with Jake! I’ve long felt like this should have been more of a rivalry, given our shared profiles, but some of what has kept that from happening is just that not only have the two schools have never really been good at the same time — some of Oregon State’s lows have been really low and WSU has sort of dominated the last couple of generations: The Cougs have won 30 of the 44 matchups since 1975 and had much more success overall. This chart zooms in on winning percentages for each program over that span:

Unfortunately, OSU isn’t holding up its end of the bargain this year, either; the Beavers are 4-6 overall and riding a five-game losing streak that includes getting shut out 28-0 by lowly Air Force (3-7) on Saturday. They are really struggling. And they have to win this one to maintain hope for bowl eligibility … just like New Mexico. Sigh.

The main difference here is that we’re back to a team whose offense is very bad. They’ve been held under 20 points in their last three — including at home by San Jose State a couple of weeks ago, and the haven’t topped 30 points since October 12, when the also lost to Nevada. The Beavers are down bad, and it would be awesome if we’d try to actually make sure this week that they can’t get up.

Kickoff is set for 4 p.m. PT on the CW.

About Last Night: WSU 83, Northern Colorado 69

If there was any significant hangover from Friday’s loss to Iowa, the Cougars sure didn’t show it: After falling behind a bit initially, the Cougs took control of the game in the first half to build a nine-point lead. They almost didn’t look back, but the Bears were able to walk down the Cougs and take a two-point lead with about 12 minutes remaining.

WSU turned on the gas from there, outscoring (the other) UNC 32-16 over the remainder of the game, thanks to some great shooting from Cedric Coward and Isaiah Watts. 

In A Minute

• Cougfan recap

• Stats

• Line o’ the night: Coward with 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting, including 10-of-12 on 2s. He also added 2 rebounds and 3 assists without any turnovers.

• One stat to tell the tale: The Cougars dominated inside the arc, making 25 of their 35 2-pointers (71.4%) while holding the Bears to just 17-of-38 on 2s (44.7%). That’s where this game was won.

Highlights

Three Thoughts

1. Ced’s not dead

I mean, not that I ever thought he was, but I’ve been waiting to use that line for a few weeks and I thought I could pull it out after Coward followed up two ineffective offensive performances (13 points combined against Idaho and Iowa on 13 attempts) with his best one. Coward was an absolute force of nature on offense, scoring from all over the floor — at the rim, in the midrange, and from 3.

It caused Fran Fraschilla — who was on the ESPN+ call with WSU alumnus Ben Creighton — to gush all night … and also after the game:

2. Moving on up

WSU continues to move up in a couple of primary predictive models, rising to No. 89 in the kenpom.com rankings and No. 79 in barttorvik.com rankings. That’s still quite a ways outside of the quality of teams that find themselves in bubble territory in March, but they’re moving in the right direction — and so far, their “wins above bubble”² is hanging out around zero with no bad losses. On bart’s T-Ranketology³ (which we cited heavily last year as we tried to figure out WSU’s chances of getting in the field), the Cougs are only about 20 spots from the last four in.

While we would have been over the moon for a 5-0 start that included a win over Iowa, all in all, this is a very solid start that — at the very least — hasn’t done any damage to the Cougs’ postseason chances.

3. Uh oh Nate?

This is the third consecutive “About Last Night” where I’ve featured Nate Calmese … but this time it’s not for good reasons: He left last night’s game after a rough collision in the backcourt with 6:17 left in the game.

The good news is that the Cougs were able to finish strong without him, but the bad news is that the extent of the injury is not clear, exactly. He went to the locker room, came back to the bench, and seemed to be extremely ginger with his left arm. Postgame, David Riley didn’t exactly downplay the notion that this might be more than just a minor bump or bruise that he’ll recover quickly from. Which would really suck, given both how well he’s playing and also how thin WSU is at point guard — freshman Marcus Wilson already missed last night with an injury.

If Calmese needs some time to recover, WSU can probably get by for a week against Eastern Washington and Fresno State with Parker Gerrits and Isaiah Watts holding down the fort. But Riley will need both of those guys after that; if WSU beats FSU, they could face No. 69 SMU the next day in the second round of a tournament, and then there is this rough stretch immediately after:

That’s three or four likely Quad 1 opportunities — a stretch that very likely will determine if the Cougs can be serious players for an at-large bid. It sure would be nice to have Calmese for those!

Up Next: Eastern Washington

Riley gets to make a (sort of) homecoming against the Eagles on Thursday when the Cougs travel north to play a “neutral” site game in the Spokane Arena. EWU is off to a really rough start under new coach Dan Monson, losing three of their first four. They got whipped by Colorado before beating Seattle at home and then playing a closer-than-expected game on the road at Missouri. Things were looking up.

But then they came back home and lost a bad one to Cal Poly, and the good vibes are waning already.

This is a game the Cougs should win handily — not just because the predictive models think they’re much better, but because WSU is an absolutely atrocious matchup for EWU. The Eagles’ defense is an abomination, ranking 327th in kenpom’s adjusted defensive efficiency, and while I haven’t watched them play, it looks like they run a gambling zone defense — presuming I’m reading the tea leaves (stats) correctly

• Horrific perimeter defense: EWU gives up 3-pointers on 41% of opponents’ shots, and opponents are making 45%(!!) of their attempts. That’s a bad combo!

• Lots of steals: They’re 56th in opponent turnover percentage.

• Lots of assists on opponents’ makes: Nearly 60% of opponents’ buckets come off a pass.

If the Cougs aren’t unnecessarily giving away the ball, they should roll right on through that defense with their passing and shooting.

1  By the way, I have come to despise this term because it has become a massive umbrella to describe anything involving numbers, even if sometimes it’s just a calculation of a percentage or an average, which we all learned to do in 5th grade.

2  WAB is a reasonable proxy for the relative strength of a team’s resume. A theoretical bubble team would finish the year with zero wins above bubble; a team not on the bubble would have a negative number. Last year, WSU finished the regular season 1.8 wins above bubble on their way to a No. 7 seed.

3  T-Ranketology is a predictive tool, combining a team’s already-achieved record with what his predictive model thinks they’ll do the rest of the way.