Cougs beat Cal, keep moving up in NCAA brackets (Episode 209)

A nice, easy home win on the heels of a stressful road swing.

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Jeff Nusser & Craig Powers
February 16, 2024

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The Washington State Cougars are absolutely rolling through their men’s basketball season, having picked up their sixth consecutive win on Thursday night with a fairly easy win over Cal in their return to Pullman after a three-game road swing that resulted in wins over Washington, Oregon State, and Oregon.

As usual, Kyle Smith and his merry band of Wheatfield Underdogs absolutely own the PNW.

And yet, there was a bit of trepidation coming back to Beasley to face the Golden Bears, who are well coached, play hard, and feature one of Those Dudes with Jaylon Tyson. It was Tyson who was largely responsible for WSU’s last loss, going off in the final few minutes in Berkeley.

The Cougs made sure there was none of that drama this time. Myles Rice, Jaylen Wells, and Andrej Jakimovski each took turns harassing Tyson, who had to work exceptionally hard for every one of his (relatively inefficient) 18 points. A few other guys tried to fill the void for the Bears, but Cal’s defensive intensity waned, and Rice and Isaac Jones took over to lead a 48-point second-half offensive explosion.

You might remember that Greg Heister kept insisting throughout the second half that Cal was still in the game. This is how it looked in win probability form:

Really, this was utter domination. And we broke it down:

Other topics of discussion

  • Men’s basketball: After we finished talking about Cal, we talked a bit about NCAA tournament seeding and then looked ahead to Stanford. The Cardinal are a reasonably talented, but deeply flawed bunch that isn’t particularly well coached and doesn’t match up real great with WSU.

  • Drinks: Jeff — Vodka with Topo Chico Twist of Lime soda; Craig — Household Gods (Otherlands).

  • Women’s basketball: More losses. Sigh.

Notes

Podcast music by Randy England. You can find more of his work on Instagram.

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