WSU releases men’s basketball schedule, soccer heads to Utah

A little bit of men’s basketball news dropped on Wednesday when the Washington State Cougars announced their finalized schedule for the most anticipated season in a decade.

The first game, on November 9 against Alcorn State at Beasley Coliseum, is now just 40 days away — and honestly, it can’t come soon enough. That one will tip off at noon PT as part of a doubleheader with the WSU women’s team, which will be opening up with San Jose State. There’s no tip time announced for that one yet, but it probably will be at 3:00 or 3:30 p.m.

(If you’re wondering about the weird tip times, it appears that the other Pac-12 schools are doing the same thing on that opening day and that all of the games are going to be across the Pac-12 family of networks.)

The Cougars will appear on national networks 12 times, including their regular season finale against the Oregon Ducks on March 5, which will be broadcast on CBS — one of just three Pac-12 games to appear on that network this season. Appearing on that network late in the season with all the eyeballs that will attract is a really huge deal for a program that is trying to break through to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2008.

The rest of the games, of course, will appear on the Pac-12 Network.

The biggest complaint about the schedule is that Cougs will play Washington at home on December 29 — when our massive student section will be mostly empty during winter break. For whatever reason, this sort of scheduling is an annual occurrence in both football and basketball, and I sure wish the Pac-12 would knock it off. It can’t be that hard to schedule road games during that time.

WSU also will play a pair of games in Spokane: December 11 against South Dakota State and December 22 against Boise State.

Here’s the full schedule:

Soccer takes on Utah tonight

The Cougs got their Pac-12 schedule off to a rousing start with a resounding 2-0 win over Arizona last weekend in which the Cougs dominated play (15 shots with 6 on goal to 6 and 1 for the Wildcats). Enzi Broussard and Elyse Bennett scored goals, and the defense continues to dominate — WSU hasn’t allowed a goal in its last four contests.

The Utes are coming off a 3-0 shellacking at the hands of Stanford, a team with whom the Cougs will be battling for conference supremacy. WSU and Utah do share one common opponent: Denver beat the Utes 3-0 early in the season, while WSU beat the Pioneers 2-0 a couple of weeks ago. Both games were in Colorado.

You can watch tonight’s game at 6 p.m. PT on Pac-12 Mountain. Since most of you probably don’t get that specific regional broadcast, you can find the game at Pac-12.com or on the Pac-12 Now app.

If you’re not into watching games on your computer or phone, it’s generally pretty easy to cast onto your big TV if it’s at all modern. If you have an iPhone, you can use AirPlay; there also is a Pac-12 Now app that will allow an easy connection between your phone’s Pac-12 app and your TV. It probably sounds like more of a hassle than it actually is!

Post-practice interviews for football

Uni combo

LINKS

Soccer heads to Utah - Washington State University Athletics
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Full Washington State men's hoops schedule unveiled | The Spokesman-Review
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