‘We can’t be satisfied with just getting to the tournament’: Washington State again bows out in first round of NCAAs, falls to Kansas State

RALEIGH, North Carolina – The shots kept rattling out, the fouls kept mounting up, the early advantage faded gradually and a chance to make history slipped away.

Eighth-seeded Washington State bowed out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round Saturday afternoon at Reynolds Coliseum, falling to 0-3 all time at March Madness with a 50-40 loss to No. 9 seed Kansas State.

“We’re going to celebrate this year and we’re going to be really proud of what we achieved, but on the backside of that, we can’t be satisfied with just getting to the tournament,” said sophomore guard Charlisse Leger-Walker, who was the only consistent scoring threat for WSU (19-11) in its second consecutive appearance in the Big Dance.

“Second year in a row is amazing for us, but it’s now about taking that next step and getting past that first game.”

WSU outhustled the Wildcats (20-12) for most of the contest’s first 20 minutes and led by as many as nine points early in the third quarter. At first, the Cougars fared well in neutralizing K-State’s seasonlong strategy – play through All-American center Ayoka Lee.

The Cougars sagged off the Wildcats’ inconsistent perimeter shooters, positioning an extra defender underneath to pester the 6-foot-6 Lee, who didn’t record a field goal until midway through the second quarter.

But WSU couldn’t avoid the whistles. The Cougars were forced to field a smaller lineup more frequently as the game wore on.

Post players Bella Murekatete and Jessica Clarke were in serious foul trouble by the time the third quarter began and the Wildcats capitalized, feeding Lee effectively with lobbed passes over the top of WSU’s defense. Lee drew consistent contact and K-State established momentum from the foul line, where it shot 19 of 22. WSU committed 23 fouls against 11 for the Wildcats.

“That was really the difference in the game,” WSU coach Kamie Ethridge said. “We lost a little bit of our size with fouls and had to go super small on Lee. That hurt us, but I thought it’d counter on the offensive end because it’d put more shooters on the floor, and it just didn’t.

“They obviously got a few good looks for (Lee) and every foul ended up a shooting foul. … Both of us were pretty awful shooting the ball, and shooting it from 3.”

The Wildcats shot just 26.4% from the floor, yet the Cougars were a touch worse, hitting 25% of their field-goal attempts. They were held without a basket over the final 5 minutes of the game and missed each of their last 12 tries, most of them clean looks from downtown as WSU tried to play catch-up.

The Cougars were outscored 33-16 in the second half, during which they shot 6 of 29 overall and 0 of 13 from distance – including 2 of 18 and 0 of 11 from 3-point range in the fourth quarter.

“K-State was awesome in the second half, made some great adjustments and just really kept us standing still,” Ethridge said. “You hold a really good team to 50 points, you’d think you’re going to have a much better chance to win, and we just had one of those nights where our best shooters didn’t shoot it very well.”

Leger-Walker scored 20 points (7 of 18 from the field), a program scoring record in the NCAA Tournament. Her older sister, Krystal – a WSU great playing in her final game in crimson and gray – added nine on 4-of-11 shooting but was limited to two points in the second half. The rest of the Cougars combined to shoot 3 of 27.

“It’s been our struggle all year – we haven’t shot the ball well enough,” Ethridge said.

WSU entered the postseason 11th in the Pac-12 rankings in scoring offense (60.7 ppg) and field-goal percentage (38.8%).

“We’re too reliant on one or two players and that’s about recruiting, that’s about our bigs getting better and being a presence in the post, and we didn’t have that today,” Ethridge added. “You gotta have depth to win, and we’re a little too pencil-thin.”

WSU guard Johanna Teder, usually a reliable shooter, went 0 of 10 from the field. Murekatete, another double-digit scorer on average, was also held scoreless across only 13 minutes of playing time.

“It’s unbelievably unusual to have our best 3-point shooter go 0 for 10, and we missed some layups,” Ethridge said.

Lee, who set a single-game NCAA women’s scoring record earlier this season with 61 points versus Oklahoma, scored 14 of her 20 after halftime and added 15 rebounds. She went 10 of 12 from the foul line.

“That kind of body, that kind of length – she’s good, better than anyone in the country at catching (the ball) high and keeping it high, and she gets a lot of calls on that,” Ethridge said of Lee. “They did a really good job of changing where they threw it to her.”

Before an announced crowd of 4,800 on North Carolina State’s campus, WSU maintained a lead throughout a defensive fight of a first half – or rather, an offensive dud of a half.

A 6-minute K-State scoring drought to end the first quarter allowed WSU to fashion a 16-7 lead after freshman guard Tara Wallack knocked down a corner 3 midway through the second quarter.

The Leger-Walkers suppressed a slight Wildcats rally just before the half, boosting the Cougars to a 24-17 lead at halftime with 19 combined points.

WSU forward Ula Motuga was arguably the standout of the first half, recording eight of her 14 rebounds and battling with K-State’s frontcourt despite a considerable height disadvantage. Lee was covered well and had a quiet first half, but still came up with 10 rebounds.

“We all know what a great player Ayoka is, so we all wanted to get her the ball,” said Wildcats guard Brylee Glenn, who contributed 14 points, shooting 3 of 11 from the floor and 7 of 8 from the line.

“I think, in the first half, we saw there were two people there, so we might have shied away from passing the ball to her a little,” Glenn said. “Coming into the third quarter, we put a big emphasis on looking at her more and seeing those small windows, because there were small windows to get her the ball.”

Ethridge and Cougars players acknowledged after the game that the team took a handful of unnecessary risks leading to 18 turnovers – seven in the third. K-State, a 28.6% 3-point shooting team this year, surged into the lead with back-to-back 3-pointers highlighting a 10-0 run. The Wildcats didn’t separate by an insurmountable margin until late in the fourth quarter, but there was a sense throughout the quarter that a two-possession lead would be enough, considering WSU’s offensive shortcomings.

“I think it was just our decision making,” Charlisse Leger-Walker said. “We made poor decisions in the second half and they stacked on top of each other, as well as defensive lapses. It all just kinda compounded and that’s why we struggled in the third and fourth quarters.”

WSU dropped a 57-53 decision against South Florida in the first round of last season’s NCAA tourney in Austin, Texas. It’d been 30 years since the Cougars’ last appearance in the NCAAs, an 82-62 loss to Northwestern in 1991.

There’s no question the program is trending upward fast under Ethridge, the fourth-year coach who spent 18 seasons as a K-State assistant before rebuilding Northern Colorado’s program. The Cougars followed up a breakthrough 2020-21 campaign with another historic season, recording their best record of the NCAA era and their highest finish in conference play, tying for second place.

“We’re finishing at the same point as we did last year, but if you really reflect on our year and some of the big games we had, and how we did all year-round, I definitely think we’re taking strides forward,” said Krystal Leger-Walker, WSU’s only departing starter. “Definitely not how we wanted to go out. It’s bittersweet, in terms of what we’ve been able to achieve. … This team is on the rise and I’m excited for them to keep coming back to these tournaments and keep making some noise for our Coug family.”