The Cougars made it 2 for 2 this season by picking up a notable win over Bradley on Friday night at Beasley Coliseum.

WSU was the better team from start to finish, but that didn’t really come to fruition until the second half.

Early in a basketball season, what you most want to see is that the team gets better, particularly in its areas that most need to improve. That’s what we saw last night, as the defense was magnitudes better than it was in the opener, when WSU gave up 92 points to Portland State.

Defense involves a lot of things, with switches and help and funneling etc. all playing a role, but really it’s mostly as simple as staying in front of your guy. And the Cougars were magnitudes better at that against Bradley, a big reason why Bradley shot only 46% inside the arc. That was best exemplified by 5-foot-8 point guard Duke Deen — the engine of their offense — who had an absolutely miserable night.

The Cougs consistently made things difficult for Bradley. They picked their defense up full court, and while I wouldn’t necessarily call what they did a “press,” the Cougs certainly endeavored to pressure the ball from endline to endline. It accomplished its goal: WSU forced some turnovers, and Bradley sped up beyond what they’re comfortable with.

I don’t want to overstate the defensive performance — it was nowhere near perfect, and it wasn’t even up there with some of the above average defensive performances we saw out of Kyle Smith’s teams.¹ Losing shooters when the other team moves the ball effectively remains an issue: Bradley shot over 40% from 3 on 26 attempts. Bradley also scored at a 1.04 points per possession clip, which will probably be good enough to win them a number of games this year

But not against this WSU offense.

Craig and I harp on this a lot on the podcast, but: There really is no substitute for simply taking more shots than your opponent. Observe:

WSU also took a bunch more free throws, which of course played into that efficiency number. But even that is influenced by not turning the ball over and picking up offensive rebounds — offensive rebounds, in particular, lead to possessions that end with free throws at a higher rate than normal. Bradley has been anywhere from pretty good to really good at defensive rebounding over the last few years, so this is a real positive sign for WSU. And it wasn’t just one guy: LeJuan Watts (4) and Cedric Coward and Dane Erikstrup (3 each) all made big contributions.

One of the folks in our premium slack came up with this, and I think it’s absolutely perfect:

It’s not just the similar hair styles and stature; it’s everything, right down to walking the tight rope of being thisclose to being completely out of control during his ventures up the floor and forays into the lane.

Last night was one of the very good nights: 18 points on just 9 shots, which included 9-of-11 from the free throw line. His first 9 points of the game were all scored on and-1 finishes at the rim. He also had a load of great passes, finishing with 6 assists and — probably most importantly — zero turnovers. He also was the tip of the spear on the defensive pressure, picking up three steals and forcing at least one other bad pass turnover in the backcourt.

The Cougs wrap up their three-game home stand to open the season by hosting the Vandals on Monday for a Veterans Day special. Idaho is still quite bad, although both kenpom and barttorvik forecast them to be a bit better than the have been — they’re now rated in the 200s instead of 300s.

This game has a history of being a bit more competitive than anticipated — one of those “throw out the records, it’s a rivalry!!” kind of games. But that hasn’t actually been the case in the last couple, and I don’t really expect that to change here: Both sites peg the Cougs at about 90% to win this one. What it likely will end up being is a final tuneup before the first real big game of the season: Against Iowa (in Illinois).

Tip off is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. PT and the broadcast is set for ESPN+.

(Yes, if you haven’t yet realized … you’re going to need an ESPN+ subscription this year.)