WSU men drop WCC quarterfinal to San Francisco

Year 1 of the coach David Riley era for Washington State men’s basketball could be over, dimming in the West Coast Conference quarterfinals under the Las Vegas lights.

Senior Ethan Price led the sixth-seeded Cougars with 26 points and sophomore LeJuan Watts tallied 20 but it was not enough to outpace the third-seeded San Francisco Dons, who beat WSU 86-75 in the WCC quarterfinals on Sunday at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

“It's one of those games where we played a really good team and just didn't have enough gas in the tank to go finish that game,” Riley said.

The Dons will play Gonzaga at 8:30 p.m. today in the semifinals.

USF sophomore Ryan Beasley treated the Cougars to the best game of his college career. The sophomore sank a career-high four 3-pointers en route to a career-best 29 points.

And he almost didn’t play.

Beasley left USF’s regular season loss to Gonzaga with an ankle injury on March 1.

San Francisco coach Chris Gerlufsen said that he did not know if Ryan Beasley was going to play versus WSU until about 15 minutes prior to tipoff when an assistant coach told him that Beasley was good to go.

“That was music to my ears,” Gerlufsen said.

His 34 minutes, 10 field goals, 15 attempts and eight 3-point attempts were also career-best marks.

“Wanted to be out there with my guys and compete,” Beasley said.

The reigning WCC Freshman of the Year is averaging 8.5 points per game and made just his second career start — with the first one coming in USF’s 75-51 win over WSU on Feb. 1.

Beasley got the start as the Dons’ starting guard Marcus Williams was injured.

While Beasley sank 10-of-15 shots, the rest of the lineup struggled to produce consistently, bringing USF’s field goal percentage down to 43.7%.

The Cougs shot a slightly sharper 48% from the floor, but both teams were posting sub-40% marks about 10 minutes into the contest.

Price stepped up to lead the Cougars in what could have been his last college basketball game.

With WSU trailing by four at the 7:02 mark of the first half, the senior from England picked up a bounce pass from redshirt freshman Parker Gerrits dribbled the ball off his foot, recovered and flicked the bounce pass to Price who put it up and off the glass, picking up the and-1 in the process.

Price completed the old-fashioned 3-point play at the foul line to cut USF’s lead to one.

Nate Calmese posted 16 points for the Cougs in the losing effort. The junior drilled three 3-pointers, including two within the final six minutes of the first half.

Calmese’s second 3 gave the Cougs a 31-30 lead with 2:13 left in the first half. But it would be the last time WSU led as Ryan Beasley’s brother, senior Robby Beasley, sank a layup 16 seconds later to give USF the lead for good.

ND Okafor poured in five of his six points in the final three minutes of the first half to keep the Cougars within a possession of the Dons.

USF rapidly expanded its two-point halftime lead with a 52-point second half to claim the 11-point win.

The Cougars found themselves short-handed down the stretch as WSU senior Dane Erikstrup got hit in the head early on and did not return to the game.

Down a player, the Cougs saw three more starters commit four fouls and play with a danger of disqualification.

WSU and USF split the regular season series with both teams winning on their home floor. Both coaches shared respect for the other in the postgame news conference.

“I would like to give credit to Washington State, that was a hard-fought game,” Gerlufsen said. “They play super physical, they play hard, they play to the final buzzer, so credit to them for the way they competed on the second night.”

With an overall record of 19-14, WSU is all but officially out of the running for the NCAA Tournament, but could still earn another postseason invite to either the NIT or the College Basketball Crown, an inaugural event hosted by Fox and Anschutz Entertainment Group in Las Vegas.

Riley said that his team wants to keep playing basketball together and that is exactly the kind of program he wants to continue to build.

As for what the remainder of the season could contain, Riley said he and his staff pride themselves in developing the guys in the building.

“If I can just coach two areas better, like, we get better at rebounding (or) we get better with our turnovers — we're one of the top teams in this league,” Riley said. “I just see a ton of guys that can get better, that have a super high ceiling, that work the right way and we're gonna have some guys take a jump next year.”

WASHINGTON ST. (19-14)

Erikstrup 0-2 2-2 2, Price 9-15 5-7 26, L.Watts 9-13 1-2 20, Calmese 6-14 1-3 16, I.Watts 0-5 0-0 0, Vavers 1-2 0-0 3, Thrastarson 1-1 0-0 2, Okafor 2-5 2-6 6, Gerrits 0-1 0-0 0, Wynott 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 28-58 11-20 75.

SAN FRANCISCO (24-8)

Wang 4-9 0-0 10, Linguard 1-5 0-0 2, Ry.Beasley 10-15 5-5 29, Riley 5-11 0-0 10, Thomas 6-17 6-6 18, Ro.Beasley 3-7 0-0 6, Abosi 0-0 7-8 7, O'Donnell 0-0 0-0 0, Gigiberia 2-6 0-1 4, Rivera-Torres 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 31-71 18-20 86.

Halftime — San Francisco 34-32. 3-Point Goals — Washington St. 8-21 (Calmese 3-5, Price 3-6, Vavers 1-2, L.Watts 1-2, Gerrits 0-1, Erikstrup 0-2, I.Watts 0-3), San Francisco 6-25 (Ry.Beasley 4-8, Wang 2-6, Linguard 0-1, Ro.Beasley 0-3, Riley 0-3, Thomas 0-4). Rebounds — Washington St. 23 (Price 6), San Francisco 45 (Wang 10). Assists — Washington St. 18 (Calmese 11), San Francisco 16 (Linguard, Ry.Beasley, Ro.Beasley 3). Total Fouls — Washington St. 21, San Francisco 20. A — 3,775 (9,500).

Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2268, staylor@lmtribune.com, or on X or Instagram @Sam_C_Taylor.