Volleyball headed back to the NCAA Tournament

For the sixth straight season, the WSU volleyball team is headed to the NCAA Tournament. The Cougars were awarded an at-large bid on Sunday and will face Northern Colorado on Thursday.

The Cougs will have a tough road ahead. If they beat Northern Colorado on Thursday, they would advance to likely face No. 5 Baylor on Friday. Baylor is the host of the regional and would also have a significant home-court advantage.

Northern Colorado finished the regular season 24-6 and 13-3 in the Big Sky. They will be at a significant disadvantage on Thursday as their head coach Lyndsey Oates will not coach in the game due to Covid-19 protocols.

WSU finished the regular season 19-11 including 13-7 in Pac-12 play. That was good enough for a fourth-place finish in the conference. The Cougars lost their regular-season finale 3-1 to Washington on Saturday.

It was not a great weekend for the Cougar basketball programs. The women’s basketball team picked up a nice win on Thanksgiving, knocking off Miami 62-47 in the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship. That advanced the Cougs to play No. 5 North Carolina State and WSU struggled to get much going in a 62-34 loss. The Cougs shot just 26% from the floor against the Wolfpack.

Charlisse Leger-Walker typically leads the way for the Cougs, but the sophomore shot just 1-of-11 against NC State, resulting in a season-low 3 points. The loss was WSU’s first of the year. The Cougs will be back in action on Thursday against San Francisco.

The men’s basketball team also suffered its first loss of the season on Saturday, losing 76-71 to Eastern Washington in an ugly performance. The Cougs played without Noah Williams and T.J. Bamba.

WSU will need to rebound quickly as they begin Pac-12 play on Wednesday on the road against Arizona State.

We typically don’t reserve much space for the football team in the weekend recap since that is well covered in other articles. But considering the weekend the Cougs had, we’ll just leave this right here.

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Football:

Jake Dickert reacts to being named Washington State's new head football coach on Pac-12 After Dark
Jake Dickert joined Pac-12 After Dark after being named the 34th head coach in Washington State football history. Dickert led the Cougars (7-5, 6-3 Pac-12) to a 3-2 record as the interim head coach, including a 40-13 Apple Cup win over Washington that snapped a seven-game skid to the Huskies.

Washington State rewind: Cougars flipped the Apple Cup script in blowout victory | The Spokesman-Review
SEATTLE – Travell Harris led a “Go Cougs” chant while perched on someone’s shoulders in the middle of a crimson swarm of over 1,000 that had blanketed the field at Husky Stadium.

Washington State hires Jake Dickert: Cougars value stability in elevating interim coach to full-time role - CBSSports.com
Dickert went 3-2 with an Apple Cup win as interim coach after taking over for Nick Rolovich

Volleyball:

WSU volleyball to go dancing again | Sports | lmtribune.com
Despite a two-match losing streak to end the season, the Washington State volleyball team is back in the field of 64.

Dancing Again, Cougs back in the NCAA Tournament - Washington State University Athletics
PULLMAN, Wash. – For the sixth consecutive season Washington State is dancing as the Cougs earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament as announced Sunday evening.

Soccer:

Locally: WSU soccer coach Shulenberger agrees to contract extension | The Spokesman-Review
Washington State University made a move last week to keep Todd Shulenberger, coach of the Cougars’ highly successful women’s soccer team, around a while longer.