Washington State basketball leads Pac-12, closes in on NCAA tournament

NCAA tournament bracketology: Selection committee drops some early hints

Those who were paying attention to Left Coast Hoops might have seen a breakthrough coming a couple of seasons ago. Those Cougars reached the NIT semifinals and won 22 games. But this year’s bunch was a bit more of an afterthought, getting pegged 10th in the league’s preseason poll.

So, what aided this breakthrough? Plenty.

Idaho transfer Isaac Jones is the Cougars’ leader in scoring (15.7 per game) and rebounding (7.6). Division II import Jaylen Wells, who dropped 27 points on Arizona on Thursday, averaged 22.1 points at Sonoma State last year and has fit in splendidly as a floor-stretching forward who shoots 45.9 percent from three-point range.

Myles Rice, who redshirted in 2021-22 and sat out last year while receiving treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, is the top backcourt option at 15.5 points and 3.7 assists an outing. And senior Andrej Jakimovski is another capable outside shooter who provides a fourth option and averages double figures in points.

Overseeing all of this is Kyle Smith, an analytics guru who has become a specialist in winning at places not many coaches have in recent times. He won 101 games and a CIT title at Columbia, where his .552 winning percentage is the highest of any Lions coach since 1958.

In his first two years at San Francisco, he became the first coach to lead the Dons to back-to-back 20-win seasons since the program was revived in 1985. Then he did it again before leaving for Washington State.

The Cougars’ run takes place with the same backdrop as Oregon State’s football success in the fall. Conference consolidation ripped the Pac-12 asunder over the summer, with the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC each taking bits of the league. Washington State will find a temporary safe harbor in the West Coast Conference next season in most sports, including basketball.

But that’s a problem for the future Cougars. For now, they’ve won eight in a row entering Saturday’s game at Arizona State and will then close the regular season with three home games. It’s a heck of a script, and Washington State doesn’t seem anywhere close to being done with it yet.

Washington State, now 16 years removed from its most recent NCAA tournament appearance,…