Myles Rice: Cancer Survivor

The WSU men’s basketball team may have ended the regular season with a loss, but Myles Rice, who redshirted last year and has missed all of this season as he battled non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, got a big win on Thursday.

I used “battled” in the paragraph above because, well:

Rice was expected to contribute big time this season as a second-year freshman. The cancer diagnoses put him on a different path, but he was rarely—if ever—absent from the team for a long stretch. Rice stayed with his team on the bench during game days and, according to Kyle Smith via Colton Clark of The Spokesman-Review, would sneak into practice after chemotherapy treatments.

Smith indicated there’s still a spot on the roster for Rice, and he should have a full summer to get back into basketball shape ahead of next season. Of course, that’s getting a little ahead of ourselves. As anyone who’s been touched by cancer—directly or indirectly—it’s healthy to take the time to celebrate the victory.

WSU will find out if it got an at-large bid to the NIT on Sunday. Regardless, Rice has given the team its biggest win this season.

Go Cougs.

Where will the WSU women land in the NCAA Tournament?

The women’s team will learn its first round opponent Sunday evening at 5 p.m. PST on ESPN. As I write this on Friday evening, ESPN’s Charlie Creme has WSU as a 6-seed playing in Durham, N.C. against either Marquette or Kansas.

Unlike the men’s tournament, the women’s tournament has just two regional hosts, and one of them is Seattle. Should WSU reach the Sweet 16, there’s a 50-50 chance they’ll be playing in-state.

DJ on the mic