Washington State women, playing first game without Charlisse Leger-Walker, fade against No. 6 Colorado 63-57

PULLMAN – Life without injured star Charlisse Leger-Walker began Friday for the Washington State women’s basketball team.

Offense is going to be difficult to manufacture if the loss to sixth-ranked Colorado 63-57 in a Pac-12 game at Beasley Coliseum is any indication.

The Cougars (15-7 overall, 4-5 Pac-12) had difficulty creating offense. The obvious indicator is they had just eight assists on 24 made baskets. That’s a lot of 1-on-1 scoring by WSU.

And WSU let Frida Formann loose too often. Formann scored a game-high 27 points, including 6-of-9 shooting from 3-point range.

The Cougars played exceptionally hard in Leger-Walker’s absence. But the difficulty on the offense really set in at the end of the third quarter when the Buffaloes (18-3, 8-2) used a 15-6 surge to take a 45-42 lead into the fourth.

WSU was coming off its biggest win in school history, 85-82 over then-No. 2-ranked UCLA last Sunday in Los Angeles.

But a couple of practices weren’t enough for the Cougars to find a new way without the best player in school history.

WSU’s final lead came when Astera Tuhina, who returned from a foot injury Friday, hit a jumper for a 50-48 lead with 5:51 remaining.

A 6-0 spurt gave Colorado the lead for good.

WSU got scoring from just four of nine players who saw time. Tara Wallack led with 19 points and five rebounds, and Tuhina and Eleonora Villa had 15 each.

WSU coach Kamie Ethridge bemoaned the struggles on offense, a poor second half and poor defense on Formann.

“I wouldn’t have thought this would happen,” Ethridge said. “I would not have thought we’d have goose eggs across some of our players. Again a lot of credit to Colorado and how they play and how they disrupt.”

Wallack often was guarding Formann, but even her length couldn’t slow her down.

“We just had mistakes,” Wallack said. “It’s going to happen and we’re going to fix it. We knew (Formann) was going to score. We just need to eliminate the mistakes.”

“She made six (3-pointers), but it felt like four of them were just daggers to us,” Ethridge said.

Formann made three 3-pointers in a row that turned the Buffaloes’ offense around.

The Cougars will have a day to prepare for 20th-ranked Utah, which visits Sunday. Tip is at noon.