PULLMAN – With his hand on his temple, David Riley shook his head and offered a quiet scoff.
“Our assists numbers are …” Riley said, trying to find the right word.
Then he found it.
“Pathetic,” Riley said. “I don’t have a nice word to describe that.”
That’s about how things are going in Riley’s second season at Washington State, which dropped a 78-64 home game to Nevada on Sunday afternoon, good for the Cougars’ fourth straight loss. With that result, WSU drops to 3-7 on the season, a forgettable first 10 games for the group.
What’s the problem? That might depend on how much time you have. In Sunday’s second half, Nevada outscored WSU to the tune of 47-32. The Cougars lost 14 turnovers, their fifth straight game committing 10 or more. Sophomore guard Tomas Thrastarson scored a team-best 20 points, but his teammates combined for 44 points on 13 made shots – and that’s for the whole game.
In other words, not much is going right for the Cougs, who have an even tougher game next: at No. 24 USC.
“I thought it was a really disappointing loss,” Riley said. “We’ve got a bunch of new guys that are learning how we do things. And the reality is, when you’re playing this level, you gotta learn every way to lose, I guess, until you’re allowed to go win it.”
Around WSU, the vibes have cratered since last week, ever since guard Ace Glass dropped a freshman-record 40 points in a loss to Arizona State at the Maui Invitational. Glass followed with two 15-point games. On Sunday, he managed 10 points, but he needed 14 shots to get there. It’s clear that Glass is nearing the top of opponents’ scouting reports, and in his first season of college ball, he’ll have to make some adjustments.
Problem is, the Cougs haven’t been able to take care of the ball long enough to make things easier on him. In the first handful of games this season, WSU appeared to have cleaned up turnovers, which were one of last year’s team’s biggest problems. But in Maui, the Cougs coughed up 23 turnovers to Division II school Chaminade, needing a second-half rally to win that game. Since then, WSU has committed 15 turnovers against Seton Hall, 20 turnovers against Bradley and now 14 against Nevada – all losses.
In Sunday’s game, the Cougs were bitten by an uncharacteristic problem: rebounding. In this one, Nevada turned 14 offensive rebounds into 20 second-chance points, which was a key way the Wolfpack won the second half so convincingly.
After the game, Riley pointed to a pair of contested three-pointers Nevada sank. At that point, Riley noticed a change in his guys’ spirits.
“We kinda hung our heads,” Riley said, “and we started changing things – not scheme-wise. We started adjusting on the ball a little bit, and we stopped rebounding like we needed to. I think we gotta stick with the process and trust what we’re doing, and can’t shy away from that.”
That’s about when Riley began to ponder this question: How do the Cougars stop this season from getting away from them? Riley’s first few words: “Gotta live in reality.” After saying the Cougars would have beaten Nevada if they replicated their first-half effort in the second, he recalled WSU’s season-opening loss to Idaho, saying that’s a game “we can all look at as a game we should have won.”
Then he began to rehash his group’s last few contests: Against ASU, “if we get some stops down the stretch and slow down (Moe) Odom, we win that.” Against Bradley, “if we don’t turn it over, or we finish the game the right way, I mean, that’s four losses that I think should be flipped. And what are we, 7-3 instead of 3-7?
“That’s the reality, and we gotta get better. We gotta learn from those mistakes. We have a ton of really good opportunities in a league like the WCC, where we can go get this back, and we gotta continue to grow. And these guys have a great mindset. We just gotta trust a little bit more.”