Men's College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Washington State Cougars

The Pac-12 doesn’t get a whole lot of respect in college basketball lately, but that’s the conference’s own fault, as it’s been a fairly pathetic conference over the last couple of seasons. Many of the teams took advantage of the largest transfer portal ever, and we will see a lot of new faces this season. There will be plenty of hype surrounding the UCLA Bruins after their unlikely final four run last year while teams like Oregon, Arizona and USC try to gain relevance once more. There is plenty of excitement surrounding the WSU Cougars and their juicy roster, but the amount of projected bottom feeders could lead to another disappointing season for the Pac-12.

Nevertheless, there will be firepower on each of these rosters and Pac-12 Thursday DFS slates tend to be some of the most chaotic of the week. Let’s break down each team and identify the players to watch for this upcoming season.

In this one, Washington State.

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Washington State Cougars 2021-2022 Season Preview

2020-2021 record: 14-13 (7-12 Pac-12), 10th in Pac-12
Postseason: None

Key Departures | Washington State Cougars

Isaac Bonton (playing professionally)
Aljaz Kunc (transferred to Iowa State)
Volodymyr Markovetsky (transferred to San Fran)
Myles Warren (transfer portal)

Key Additions | Washington State Cougars

Michael Flowers (transferred from South Alabama)
Tyrell Roberts (transferred San Diego)
Matt DeWolf (transferred from Brown)
Mouhamed Gueye (4 star recruit)
Myles Rice (3 star recruit)

Returners | Washington State Cougars

Noah Williams (14.1 PPG/3.6 RPG/2.7 APG/1.6 SPG)
Efe Abogidi (8.9 PPG/7.2 RPG/1.3 BPG)
Dishon Jackson (7.2 PPG/4.3 RPG)
DJ Rodman (6.1 PPG/3.7)
TJ Bamba (4.2 PPG)
Andrej Jakimovski (5.5 PPG/4.1 RPG)
Ryan Rapp (3.5 PPG/2.6 RPG)

Washington State Cougars Outlook for 2021-2022

Kyle Smith is a stud coach who built the San Fran Dons into an exciting program, and he has suddenly turned habitual bottom-feeding WSU into a fringe tourney contender quickly. There are many around the industry who think they’re a tournament team this year, and that might be the case, as they have a solid core group of players that all play their role well. They lost high-usage guard Isaac Bonton, but they’re deeper this year and an older Noah Williams has most of us in the fantasy world salivating over his junior season.

Noah Williams had some slate-shattering games for us last year at amazingly low ownership, and there was a triple overtime game against Stanford last February in which he scored 40 points and had a usage rate of 43%. He announced himself to the world that day and now his expectations couldn’t be any higher. His shot rate last year was around 28% but he also had an assist rate of 21.5% and a steals rate of 3%. I will be shocked if he isn’t one of the top players in the Pac-12 this year.

He will have help in the form of South Bama transfer Michael Flowers, a 21 PPG/4.6 RPG/3.6 APG/1.6 SPG producer last year and Tyrell Roberts, a 19.2 PPG/3.4 RPG/3.1 APG/1/5 SPG guy at San Diego. This is a magnificent trio of scorers, dime droppers and lockdown defenders that are going to give Pac-12 opponents absolute fits. Key contributors Jakimovski, Jackson and Abogidi are back as well. Those three bring experience, rebounding and defense giving the Cougars a really strong core group. There is a lot of excitement about 6-foot-11 freshman Mo Gueye as well. He reclassified to be eligible now and has a surprisingly strong jumper and strong ball handling skills for a player his size. Dennis Rodman’s son DJ is also back and brings most of his value as a streaky corner 3 jump shooter.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

This might be the most exciting roster in the entire conference, and just because they have depth doesn’t mean they’re going to use it unless they have to. Guys like Ryan Rapp, TJ Bamba and Matt DeWolf will likely act as more of an insurance policy in case of injuries. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better trio of guards anywhere else with Roberts, Williams and Flowers having endless upside but also a high floor. The hype is real in Pullman, folks.