WSU secures No. 7 seed in first NCAA Tournament bid in over decade, facing No. 10 Drake in Omaha

PULLMAN – For the first time in more than a decade, Washington State is going dancing.

The Cougars have secured a 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament, playing 10th -seeded Drake on Thursday in Omaha, Nebraska, making their first cameo in the national dance since 2008.

The game is set to tip-off at 7:05 p.m. PDT on truTV.

“It’s been a really exciting day to get our loyal fans to show up and watch us go through that process,” said WSU coach Kyle Smith, the first coach to guide the Cougs to the NCAA Tournament since Tony Bennett. “We’re trying to prep our guys for all the attention they’re gonna get – the interviews, autographs. That’s just part of the deal. And drawing Drake, who, unfortunately I watched them play in their conference tournament, and they’re good.”

“Since I finished my chemotherapy, I wrote down in my journal and on my iPad all the things that me personally, I wanted to accomplish and team-wise,” said WSU guard Myles Rice, who overcame cancer to play this season. “Making the NCAA Tournament was one of the things I wanted to get done this year. We got a couple more things we can check off. But yeah, it feels great to be in this tournament, and we just gotta keep doing what we do.”

The winner of WSU/Drake, which will take place at CHI Health Center, will move on to Saturday’s second round, facing the winner of second-seeded Iowa State and 15th-seeded South Dakota State.

WSU, coming off a Pac-12 Tournament semifinal loss to Colorado last weekend in Las Vegas, gets a Drake team that won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship, knocking off Indiana State in last week’s title game. The Bulldogs’ (28-6) best player might be guard Tucker DeVries, son of coach Darian DeVries, who averages 22 points per game on 36% shooting from deep.

Drake – whose campus in Des Moines, Iowa, is a two-hour drive to Omaha – has won 10 of its last 11 games. The Bulldogs, who also feature double-digit scorers in guard Atin Wright (13.9 ppg), guard Kevin Overton (11.4 ppg) and forward Darnell Brodie (11.3 ppg), are an undersized group who rebounds really well.

The Bulldogs, whose average height of 6-foot-4 ranks nearly last nationwide, rank first in the country with an offensive rebound percentage of 22.1%. Their leading rebounders include DeVries, who pulls down 6.8 rebounds per game, and Brodie, who averages 7.9 per contest.

“They get into you a little bit defensively,” Smith said of Drake, adding he watched their conference tournament game last week. “Their point guard can really defend, and they got a big, wide body at center, physical guy (Brodie). I don’t know if there’s anyone like DeVries in our league – he’s a little like (UW forward) Keion Brooks. Not quite as bouncy, to say the least. But he’s a bucket-getter. He can make long 3s, midrange, he can score at the end of the clock.”

But for Washington State (24-9), the moment is important for what it means to the program. The last time the program made this tournament, back-to-back appearances in 2007 and 2008, these current Cougs were toddlers. Smith was the head coach at Columbia, two jobs away from becoming the head man at WSU.

Even the WSU players themselves never anticipated being here, at least not at younger ages.

“When I was that young,” forward Isaac Jones said of his teenage years, “I thought I was done with basketball. I didn’t think I’d be here. I’m very blessed to be here.”

“Honestly, I can’t say that I saw myself being here in this moment,” wing Jaylen Wells added. “I’m just so happy and glad for this coaching staff. We’re so blessed that we have this opportunity. I think it’s a credit to my hard work but also credit to the coaching staff for believing in me.”

The Cougs, whose last win came last weekend over Stanford in the conference tournament semifinals, have registered one of the best seasons in program history, tying a program record with 14 conference wins. They landed two players on the all-conference teams, first-team selections Rice and Jones, plus an honorable mention pick in Wells.

It’s been a long time coming for WSU, which was picked 10th in the preseason Pac-12 media poll. Smith swears he didn’t know about that until a couple months ago – he was too busy guiding the Cougs to win after win, including two top-10 victories over Arizona and a winning streak as long as eight.

The Cougars have lost three of their last six, including losses to Arizona State, Washington and Colorado.