I cannot promise I will always have time for this, both in terms of watching every women’s game (I sometimes can’t) and writing about each of them (I only have so much time!). However, since the first day of the basketball season is a celebration of the return of hoops, and both teams played, I was able to sit down and watch both games in their entirety — and recap both.

I hope you enjoy!

Welcome back to our men’s hoops feature where we revisit the game from the night before to put it in a little bit of context. After game one of the David Riley era, one thing is for certain: These are definitely not Kyle Smith’s Cougs.

WSU hit triple digits in their season opener, scorching the nets from all over the floor while playing at a breakneck pace. If you didn’t get a chance to watch it — and it would be understandable if you did not, given the 8 p.m. PT tip and the broadcast on ESPN+ — you’d probably think the Cougs cruised against an obviously overmatched opponent. You’d be wrong!

Dane Erikstrup scored the first bucket of the game in exceedingly easy fashion, which would be a harbinger of things to come … but not before the Vikings went on a 21-2 run over the next five minutes as they seemed to hit every 3-point shot while the Cougars bungled their way around the floor with turnover after turnover. At one point, PSU had more offensive rebounds than WSU had shot attempts!

Once the Cougars stopped giving the ball away, their offensive talent took over. Down 21-4, WSU quickly closed the gap most of the way with a 10-0 run (keyed by a couple of Erikstrup 3s), Portland State ended its dry spell with a bucket, WSU went on another 7-0 run (keyed by five points from Nate Calmese) to close the gap to just two, and it was game on. Three minutes later it was tied; two minutes later WSU led by six and they’d never trail again.

Another Calmese 3-pointer completed a 42-17 scoring outburst over the final 14:26 of the half to send the Cougs into the locker room leading by eight. Crisis averted?

Sort of. PSU got to within two over the first four minutes of the second half. But WSU responded once again, stretching the lead out to double digits over the next four minutes, more or less holding it there before pushing it all the way up to 17 points with a couple of minutes to go. Some excellent garbage time hustle by PSU allowed them to close the gap a little and get the final margin into single digits.

We knew Riley’s philosophy was more offensively oriented than his predecessor’s, but holy crap — from a style standpoint, this was about as jarring of a departure from Smith as there could possibly have been. The Cougs dropped 100 while flying up and down the floor to the tune of 81 possessions; only once did WSU top 80 possessions in Smith’s tenure, and they were most often below 70.¹ They played some really fun, fluid offensive basketball that featured the ball movement and shooting we expected to see. There also were a lot of turnovers, some of which is to be expected when you move the ball as much as the Cougars will, but a lot of it was just being sloppy.

However, as if to really drive home the point that Smith is no longer in charge, they also gave up 92. Portland State did shoot really well at times, but mostly you can just chalk it up to poor defense — folks were often out of position, repeatedly losing shooters and getting beat off the dribble. The Vikings scored 1.14 points per possession, a number that is not horrible devoid of context, but there’s an important piece of context: PSU is projected to be in the bottom quartile of Division 1 teams, and BartTorvik.com adjusted the defensive performance to being comparable to giving up 1.23 ppp to an average team. Only once did WSU give up an adjusted mark that high last season.²

But still: A point scored is basically the same as a point prevented, so how much you buy into this new approach is going to depend largely on your own personal aesthetic preferences. I think it’s also worth remembering that under Smith, the defense usually came out on point while the offense took about a month or so to sort itself out. Here’s to hoping this is just the inverse of that and that the defense will ramp up to speed.

When the roster was turning itself over and all the fellas from EWU were making their way south to follow their coach, Coward was largely believed to be the linchpin to make this all work. He also left us holding our breath for a while, as he was basically the last one to commit after going through the NBA Draft process and entertaining offers from other schools.

Thank goodness he ended up in Pullman, because he is absolutely as advertised. Coward is long and rangy and he just does so many things well on the floor. He scored 23 points without being a high-volume player, taking just 14 shots. He was a monster on the defensive glass (something that is going to be essential with this front line). He was disruptive at times on defense.

He’s just so damn smooth, gliding all over the court to make impact plays. He makes everything look easy, and he’s going to be very fun to watch for this one season we’ve got him.

Other guys who impressed included LeJuan Watts (11 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 2 steals, 1 turnover), whose first half performance kept the Cougs from losing touch; and Isaiah Watts, who reprised his microwave role off the bench to score 20 points on just 8(!!) shots.

A couple of guys who are expected to contribute this season — Cal transfer ND Okafor and true freshman Kase Wynott — did not play because of injuries. Neither are expected to miss extended periods, although it’s unclear as to whether they’ll be available on Friday for a more-difficult-than-you-probably-think matchup with Bradley. Riley said postgame that both guys are “day-to-day.” (But aren’t we all??)

While I’m curious what Wynott will bring to the table, his skillset is likely at least somewhat redundant on the roster. Okafor, on the other hand, demonstrated in his limited minutes in Berkeley that he’ll bring defensive toughness and rebounding, two things that were in short supply last night. It’s probably worth noting that Okafor missed almost all of last season with an injury; it’s not really known if this is related and they’re just brining him along slowly, or if this is completely unrelated. Whatever it is, they clearly need him, even if it’s only for 15 or 20 minutes a night.

The other newcomers who didn’t play last night — Icelander Tomas Thrasterson and Serbian Dimitrije Vukecievic — appear to be headed for redshirts.

Bradley visits Beasley Coliseum on Friday for a game that figures to present a much stiffer challenge. Kenpom.com projected the Braves to be just a bit better than the Cougs, but the two programs went in different directions after game one: Bradley moved up 13 spots after whipping Southeast Missouri, while WSU dropped a few. Which, whatever — what matters is that this is probably a coin-flip type of game where the two teams are pretty evenly matched.

Under coach Brian Wardle, Bradley has consistently improved from one of the worst programs in the country to a consistent top 100; last season, they were only rated behind Indiana State and Drake and played in the NIT for the second consecutive season. Their success is built on defense, which should provide a very different sort of test for our offensive-minded Cougs: They limit threes attempts, defensive rebound like crazy, and really make you work for shots. The tempo is like to be much, much lower in this one, and the Cougs’ patience will be tested.

Tip off is again at 8 p.m. PT and again will be broadcast on ESPN+.

To describe this game as a roller coaster of emotions does a disservice to roller coasters everywhere. Personally, I would prefer my favorite team to not open its season with a game in which they fall behind their opponent by double digits, come back, fall behind again, come back to take the lead with mere seconds left, give up a bucket to go to OT, and then need another bucket in the final seconds to win.

But hey: We take the wins where we can get them!

Like the men, the women started real slowly, falling behind by eight midway through the first quarter. That gap was closed at the end of the period … only to get opened back up to 11 midway through the second. WSU trailed by 12 at half thanks to a balanced attack from the Eagles that saw eight different players score as they shot 5-of-9 combined from beyond the arc. The Cougars, meanwhile, were struggling mightily with their shot.

As they so often have done under Kamie Ethridge, WSU turned up the defensive pressure in the second half — the Eagles turned it over a whopping 14 times, undermining their excellent shooting and giving the Cougs a chance to get back in it despite continuing to not shoot super great themselves. Led by Charlotte Abraham and Eleaonora Villa, WSU outscored EWU 25-14 in the third quarter, and it appeared they might surge ahead to victory.

No such luck, thanks mostly to Peyton Howard … whom I am ecstatic I will never see play the Cougs again. As the teams battled back and forth down the stretch, she made big shot after big shot … but not all of them, missing a couple of free throws and a couple of layups (one of them extremely wide open) to give WSU a shot. Abraham cashed in with a gutsy 3-pointer off a sideline out of bounds play with just four seconds to go to put the Cougs up by two. But Howard did it again, making a layup more or less as time expired to send it to OT. She scored 12 points in the 4th — including EWU’s final 9 — and 25 overall.

The legs started to give out. The teams could muster only two points in the first three slugging it out like a pair of tired fighters. The Cougs appeared to be in trouble once again when Ella Gallatin hit a 3 with 20 seconds remaining to put the Eagles up by a pair. But once again, the Cougs came back with a 3-pointer in the closing seconds: This time, it was Astera Tuhina who hit one from deep with four seconds left to put WSU up by a pair.

There would be no heroics for the Eagles this time, as they couldn’t get off a potentially game-tying shot. Crisis averted!

These Cougs have been known for years to be clutch under Ethridge, and last night was just the latest example. There’s a certain danger to consistently playing with fire, as we sometimes find out. However, there also is something to the kind of heart and resiliency it takes to consistently come back from deficits. Once again, the Cougs didn’t panic and found a way to win, doing it as they so often do: By implementing a few tweaks at halftime and walking the other team down with their grit and intensity. The cast of characters is changing, but the ethos of the program remains. Thank God for Kamie — and the extension she signed in the offseason.

It’s tough to know how good the Eagles actually are and will be — they were Big Sky champs a year ago, and barttorvik.com’s new women’s hoops site projects them to be in the lower half of Division 1 — but I do know that weird stuff happens in season openers. WSU is integrating a bunch of new players, and the team that is supposed to be much improved from behind the arc shot really badly: Just 8-of-28 from deep. Eastern, meanwhile, was kept afloat by shooting 10-of-16 from deep.

I just didn’t see anything that would concern me. The 2-point defense was sound, they forced a bunch of turnovers, and many of the shots they missed were good looks.

Wallack had a massive game, and not just on offense: She contributed all over the floor. But when WSU needed a bucket, they went to her, and she looked very, very good doing it. One of the biggest struggles last season after Charlisse Leger-Walker went down with her knee injury was figuring out who would carry that load. Wallack tried her hand at it, but struggled under the weight. She just might be ready to step into that role now.

When the Pac-12 disintegrated, we thought we might have to live forever without ever having beaten the Cardinal. But thanks to a non-conference trip on Thursday, the Cougs will get another crack at finally picking up a win against Stanford. It’s going to be as hard as ever, as the Cougars must travel to Maples Pavilion, but a chance is a chance!

The two biggest tormenters have moved on: Tara VanDerveer has retired, and Cameron Brink moved on to the WNBA. Maybe that creates an opening! A win on the road at Stanford would be absolutely massive to bolster a potential NCAA tournament resume that won’t have a lot of opportunities for resume wins in the WCC conference schedule.