Why Washington State might be college basketball's best story this season

The Cougars, a historically disadvantaged program about to feel the weight of the Pac-12's collapse, is on the verge of its first conference title since 1941

Something about last Thursday night just felt right.

Well past midnight on the east coast and with midnight rapidly approaching as far west as the Mountain Time Zone, much of the college basketball world that was still awake had its attention fixated on the end of No. 4 Arizona’s game against Washington State.

The Wildcats, the Pac-12 powerhouse that is positioned to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament this year, was clinging to a late lead against the visiting Cougars, who earlier that week had entered the top 25 of the major national polls for the first time since then-Senator Barack Obama was running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

For all their firepower, Arizona couldn’t quite put their plucky opponent away. The Wildcats and Cougars spent much of the second half exchanging the lead and just when it appeared as though Arizona, in front of an energized home crowd, had a solid upper hand, with a three-point lead and 25 seconds remaining, Washington State’s Jaylen Wells buried a corner 3-pointer, was fouled and made the free throw to give his team the lead and, ultimately, the victory, handing the Wildcats their first loss in Tucson this season.

Social media reacted accordingly, with those bold (or reckless) enough to brave the sleep-deprived tomorrow that awaited reveling in the joy that a really well-played, exciting game can offer. It wasn’t one final Pac-12 After Dark – the label affixed to compelling, sometimes outright bizarre games that unfold well into the night for much of the country – but with only two months remaining in the conference’s life as a vehicle for major-revenue sports, it was an acknowledgement that the beloved ritual will only be around for so much longer.

Of course, that online exuberance wasn’t solely tied to the game itself. It was because of who won it.

Washington State has been one of the more pleasant surprises in college basketball this season. The Cougars were picked 10th of 12 teams in the Pac-12 preseason poll and, of course, are one of the two teams being left behind while the rest of its conference mates flee for bigger, more lucrative opportunities in other leagues after this season.

With the win against Arizona, a program with a men’s basketball budget that’s more than twice as big as its own, Washington State completed a season sweep of the Wildcats and moved into first place in the Pac-12 standings. Though they squandered some of that momentum two days later in a loss to Arizona State, the Cougars are securely in the NCAA Tournament field and have a shot at their first Pac-12 regular-season championship since 1941.

As we head into March, college basketball’s most uplifting Cinderella story isn’t at the kind of tiny private college on which we usually happily slap such a revered moniker. It just might be at a 21,000-student Power Five (for now) school.

The history of a perennial doormat

Washington State’s current success is best understood and appreciated when viewed in the broader context of the program’s history and its place in the larger college basketball world.

Unlike its in-state rival, the school isn’t located in a major metropolitan area that can be an all-important enticement to recruits and prospective coaches. In fact, the Cougars aren’t anywhere close to one. Washington State’s Pullman campus is on the far eastern edge of the state, fewer than 10 miles from the Idaho border, in a region known as the Palouse, defined visually by its rolling hills blanketed in wheat fields. It’s closer to Missoula, Mont. than Seattle.

While its football program has enjoyed brushes with national relevance – making two Rose Bowls in a six-year stretch in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and regularly appearing in the top 25 under the late Mike Leach – the men’s basketball program largely hasn’t had such luck.

The Cougars have been to the NCAA Tournament just six times and haven’t made the field since the aforementioned 2007-08 season. Northwestern and Central Florida are the only current Power Five or Big East schools with fewer trips to the Big Dance and in UCF’s case, its program didn’t join the Division I ranks until 1984. Among programs from the six major conferences, they have the second-longest NCAA Tournament drought, behind only lowly DePaul.

Since the end of World War II, only three coaches have taken Washington State to the NCAA Tournament. Each of them – George Raveling, Kelvin Sampson and Tony Bennett – went on to win NABC Division I coach of the year honors…and did so at a future coaching stop. They’re the kind of names that still get floated regularly around the program whenever hopes for a brighter future are discussed.

“When I think of Washington State basketball, I think of the great coaches that have been there, going back to Marv Harshman, George Raveling, Kelvin Sampson and then Tony Bennett, to name a few,” current Cougars coach Kyle Smith said in a statement when he was hired in 2019. 

The “to name a few” punctuation might have just been a courtesy on Smith’s part. Who else was there to name?

Among Pac-12 programs, Washington State has the fewest NCAA Tournament appearances, the lowest all-time win percentage and the fewest seasons ranked in the final Associated Press poll.

Given those limitations, the Cougars often struggle in recruiting. Since 2017, they’ve never had a class ranked higher than 39th nationally, meaning they have more finishes outside the top 100 (two) than top-30 classes (zero) in that time.

When journalist Jeff Goodman conducted a survey among Pac-12 coaches in 2019 to rank the quality of the coaching jobs in the league, Washington State was last, finishing 12th in six of the eight categories – a lack of buy games (sixth), which isn’t relevant to a Power Five program, and selling pros (11th), which was built entirely on the strength of a single player, Klay Thompson.

“It’s the biggest show in town and it’s in the Pac-12,” a Pac-12 assistant told Goodman when assessing the strengths of the job. “That’s basically it.”

How a perfect marriage was made

After the 2018-19 season, the Cougars were in a customarily unenviable position.