Yes, WSU's collapse is as bad as you think. Maybe worse!

On Saturday, the Cougars fell behind by 31(!) before halftime(!!) to Santa [f----ing] Clara(!!!) at Beasley Coliseum(!!!!), before going on to lose by 30. It was the third loss in a row by more than 20 points; two of those came in front of home crowds.

You, a normal person: “Wow, that’s really bad.”

Me, a not normal person: “Yes, it is! And also — I wonder just how bad it actually is? How does this bad compare to other badness we’ve watched? Maybe I could write a couple thousand words about it!”

I understand if this isn’t your particular flavor of masochism, but I’ve become a little obsessive with trying to contextualize this fall from grace, which our Premium Subscribers can attest to, given my my many posts about it on our members-only Slack. The way this season has imploded is just so unusual that, for me, it’s become a bit like driving past a 10-car pileup on the freeway and being unable to avert my eyes.

The difference here, though, is that — for the first time in a long time — I’m barely actually watching anymore. On Saturday, I spent the day in Seattle celebrating my youngest’s 13th birthday. I made no effort to avoid the score, no plan to watch it when I got home. When I opened the ESPN app at halftime, I let out an involuntary chuckle. Because at this point, laughing is better than crying. Perhaps you’re in a similar spot. (I still haven’t watched it.)

But, as I typically do, I still spent some time digging into the stats after the game. And after examining this smoldering wreckage of a season for the past few weeks weeks, I think there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that this is now as bad as any season of WSU basketball in the last 20 years.⁴

I realize that’s quite a statement, particularly in the context of other really awful seasons we’ve witnessed over that time period, such as Ken Bone’s final couple of seasons and all of Ernie Kent’s tenure. David Riley’s first squad won’t finish with as poor of an overall record as those teams, nor will the Cougs finish as low in the advanced rankings as them. In the historical context of WSU men’s basketball — when all 29 games are taken into account — this season actually is merely a below average season. In fact, if WSU wins just one more game in their final three, these Cougs will finish with more wins than each of Kyle Smith’s first two teams, and probably finish with a higher advanced ranking than both of them, too. (Although, at this point, wins against San Diego and Pepperdine probably shouldn’t be taken for granted.)

And yet … it feels so much worse. And I think it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude that it actually is so much worse.