HCA: Cougar women fall out of Top-25 - Still receive votes

A week after being ranked as the 25th best team in Women’s college basketball, Washington State fell right back to where they were before - unranked. They did however receive votes and are the fifth team down the list if the rankings were to continue on.

The Cougars sit at 7-3 following back-to-back overtime losses to USC and UCLA last week. While they finished with two losses, there were plenty of positives over the past week. Against USC, the Cougs had a chance in the final seconds of regulation to put the game away before the ball was poked out of Charlisse Leger-Walker’s hands as she drove the basket after stealing the inbound pass.

On Sunday, against then ranked #8 UCLA, the Cougs fought back from a 13-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter and held the Bruins to just five points in the final 10 minutes of regulation.

The Cougar women have a chance of making their way back into the top-25 next week as they take on #13 Oregon on Friday in a revenge game - the Ducks handed the Cougs their first loss of the season back in December in a 69-65 game. They finish their trip to Oregon and take on Oregon State on Sunday. A win over the Beavers won’t do much to help boost their ranking however, as they sit at 3-4 on the season.

If the Cougs can finish out this week with two wins and get ranked next Monday, their next two games could possibly be the biggest in Program history as #5 Stanford comes to town for a pair of games. The Cardinal had been ranked #1 throughout the season until this week when they dropped their first game of the season against Colorado.

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