David Riley changes course in remaking WSU's roster

Learning and growing

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.