Cougs do a whole lot of winning on and off the field

January was a challenging month for Washington State athletics with several programs dealing with Covid and scheduling issues. But the Cougs closed the month with a bang.

This past week saw an (almost) complete schedule and the Cougs did a lot of winning.

Men's basketball: 2-0

Women’s basketball: 3-0

Swimming: 1-0

Tennis: 3-0

Track & Field: 2 individual wins, 7 other top 5 finishes

As Larry David would say, pretty, pretty, pretty good. And that doesn’t even count the football team which pulled in a pair of commitments.

Let’s start with football where the Cougs held a big recruiting weekend and added to both sides of the ball. On the defensive side, WSU added 3-star linebacker Tony Carter from Jacksonville, Florida. Carter chose WSU over reported offers from Maryland, Grambling State, and Western Kentucky. Offensively, Texas running back Jaylen Jenkins also verbally committed on Saturday. He isn’t ranked by 247Sports, but ran for more than 1,500 yards this past season while averaging more than 10 yards per carry.

Moving onto women’s basketball. The Cougs had an extra busy week with a makeup game against Oregon State. They took care of business against the Beavers then swept a home-and-away weekend against Washington. WSU needed a late comeback and overtime to beat the Huskies on Friday, but it was a dominant victory on Sunday.

WSU goes on the road this week against Colorado and Utah.

The men’s basketball team needed a pair of wins this week and got it in style. After knocking off Utah on Thursday, WSU obliterated Colorado on Sunday.

The Cougs have now won four of their last five games and moved up to No. 35 in the KenPom.com rankings. The Cougars will have a chance to add to it this week with road games at Stanford and California. The Cougs have three postponed games still pending rescheduling, so we will see when that comes. WSU has a few very key, and likely very busy, weeks ahead.

The WSU tennis team is four matches into the season and is now off to a 4-0 start after three wins this week.

The Cougs started with a 5-2 win against Montana on Friday. They followed that up with a 4-2 win against Eastern Washinton on Saturday and then later on Saturday added a 5-2 win against Idaho for good measure.

Up next a trip to Texas this week for matches against Baylor and TCU.

The WSU women’s swimming team was back in the pool after several recent Covid cancellations and made the most of it with a 142-119 victory against Nevada.

The track & field team completed in split events with some of the team competing in the New Mexico Team Open and others at the UW Invitational.

In all, the Cougs recorded nine top-five finishes including a pair of victories. Mitch Jacobson won the high jump on the men’s side in New Mexico while Skyler Walton won the women’s 200-meter dash at the same event.

A 9-0 week with a couple recruiting and individual wins on top. Let’s do that again this week, Cougs.

Football:

Washington State receives commitments from highly rated Floridian defender, running back out of Texas powerhouse | The Spokesman-Review
Washington State's football program attained a pair of commitments Saturday night, securing verbal pledges from a top talent out of the Jacksonville area and a running back out of Allen High – a perennial prep powerhouse in Texas.

Washington State kicker Andrew Boyle transfers to Oregon
The Ducks landed a new kicker out of the transfer portal, with former WSU kicker Andrew Boyle announcing he is coming to Eugene.

Men’s basketball:

'We came out firing and never let up': Washington State plays complete game, blasts Colorado | The Spokesman-Review
PULLMAN – Washington State put forth an all-around effort and picked up a wire-to-wire win.

Flowers, Jakimovski help Washington St. beat Colorado 70-43 - Washington State University Athletics
PULLMAN, Wash. (AP) Michael Flowers hit four 3-pointers and finished with 16 points, Andrej Jakimovski added 14 points and 10 rebounds and Washington State never

Women’s basketball:

WSU Cougar women wrap up season sweep of UW Huskies | The Seattle Times
The Huskies' losing streak against Pac-12 women's basketball teams has hit six in a row after a 57-43 defeat at the hands of the Cougars.

Cougs Reign in Seattle Contiunes with a 57-43 Win - Washington State University Athletics
SEATTLE – The Washington State women's basketball team collected its fourth-straight win over Washington in Seattle for the first time in 49 years on Sunday, Jan.