David Riley has only made a couple of signings out of the transfer portal so far, but who he’s bringing in tells us some important things about what he learned from his first season in Pullman.

The issues that plagued the Cougars as they crashed to earth from a 13-3 start were plainly obvious to anyone who watched the team, but if you find comfort in numbers (as I do), WSU finished 337^th in turnover percentage (giving the ball away on more than 1 in 5 possessions) and 331^st in defensive rebounding percentage (allowing opponents to pick up more than 1 in 3 of their missed shots).

Longtime listeners to the podcast will recall that “shot volume” has been a frequent topic of discussion between Craig and I. It’s something the 2024 Cougs rode all the way to the NCAA tournament, and it’s a pretty simple concept: Getting up lots more shots than your opponent is a big advantage because you can be less efficient with those shots and still get good results on the scoreboard. The inverse, of course, is also true – teams that put up significantly fewer shots than their opponents have to shoot really, really well to overcome that.

The report card on that front was very bad, as WSU gave up 4.5 more shots per game than they took, including giving up a whopping 31 more shots than they took in their final two games — both losses.

The Cougs were able to largely overcome their turnovers on offense, using elite shooting (11^th nationally in effective field goal percentage) and middling offensive rebounding (144^th) to still rank 89^th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the defense, where the plethora of second chances conceded, combined with mediocre shot defense and turnover generation, caused them to finish 198th in adjusted defensive efficiency.

The 2025 Cougars performed in the exact opposite way that you would want, and it tanked their season.

Riley is determined to not let it happen again.

Jerone Morton and Emmanuel Ugbo are only the first two additions to a roster that features just five holdovers, so there are certainly more players on the way. Neither of them will immediately strike you as a massive difference maker, and yet, their additions offer a window into Riley’s priorities, filling specific needs.

Morton is a 6-foot-4 combo guard who will be a junior after averaging 10.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.4 assists in 30 minutes a game for Morehead State. His efficiency was pretty mediocre (his offensive rating is just a tick below average), but that doesn’t concern me – we know that Riley’s system will get the most out of his offensive strengths. Here’s what caught my eye: His turnover rate was 18.4%, which is not low, per se, but certainly is an improvement on Nate Calmese (19.9%) and LeJuan Watts (24.7%), who were more or less sharing the point guard duties by the end of the year. This moves the team in the right direction.¹

Highlights are sparse, but this gives you a glimpse of how he operates:

Ugbo, meanwhile, is a 6-8/235-pound forward transferring in from Boise State who will be (I think) a redshirt sophomore.² He played in 35 of 36 games in his first season, but his minutes fluctuated wildly:

The one thing he always did, though, no matter how many minutes he played, was clean the defensive glass: He picked up nearly 21% of opponents’ misses.³ That’s a massive improvement over last year’s front line of Watts (17.9%), Ethan Price (15.1%), Dane Erikstrup (12.9%), and ND Okafor (12.2%). We also can infer that Ugbo will be a plus-defender, given that he’s coming from a program where if you don’t defend, you don’t play. These are traits that WSU absolutely had to add in their frontcourt.

Offensively, he’s a really interesting prospect for Riley’s system. He made 2s at a decent rate, which is always a good sign for a big that will be playing for Riley, but his overall efficiency was merely mediocre, done in by poor 3-point shooting (5-of-21, 24%) and higher-than-you’d-like turnovers with almost no assists. When watching his video, the jump shot looks fine; perhaps small sample size is at play here, or maybe he just needs to be more consistent with his footwork. And his hands appear to be good, so I’m going to assume the turnovers come from putting the ball on the floor and initiating ill-advised drives; with the way WSU uses its bigs, it seems likely that those kinds of turnovers would come down.

Grabbing a guy who is already a plus on the defensive end with what appears to be a fair amount of untapped offensive potential is precisely the kind guy WSU fans can feel good about adding.

Riley’s work is far from finished, as there are still six openings left to fill. This would be my wishlist for the rest of the class:

For what it’s worth, I’m most curious what direction Riley goes in adding one or two more bigs. Price and Erikstrup were 6-10 and 6-11, but they didn’t really play that big, and playing them together was an issue at WSU in a way it wasn’t at EWU; Okafor and Ugbo are 6-9 and 6-8 … is Riley perhaps not prioritizing height in the same way? It’s also worth mentioning that while 7-footer Dimitrije Vukicevic has entered the portal after redshirting last season, there’s some thought that he could return.

Although there is still much left to do, I’m encouraged by the way Riley is approaching the class. I do think there’s a little bit of a danger of overcorrection – a coach never wants to lose sight of what made them successful in the first place – but so far it appears that Riley has reflected on his weaknesses and is trying to adapt to a WCC environment that’s pretty different from the Big Sky. And that’s a good thing.