Stanford @ Washington St. preview
Beasley Coliseum
Last Meeting ( Jan 9, 2021 ) Washington St. 60, Stanford 75
Both Stanford and Washington State will have good vibes going into their Pac-12 game in Pullman, Wash., on Saturday, given both are coming off Thursday night blowout victories.
Stanford beat Washington, 79-61, the fourth win in five games for the Cardinal.
"What we tried to do was have a simple game plan," Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said. "Understand that we are going to execute a play, run a play and try and see it through knowing that you might get a look or something easy on the first side. So we had patience to get to multiple sides and the guys did a good job following that game plan."
Stanford enters 14-8 overall and 10-6 in conference play, where the Cardinal is tied for fourth with Colorado going into Saturday's action.
The Cardinal are very much in the hunt for an NCAA Tournament berth with a NET ranking of 53.
Washington State enters following an 82-51 rout of California at home, which snapped a two-game losing streak.
After starting the year 9-1, the Cougars have gone 4-9 since but hope the win over California can be a springboard to the stretch run of the season.
The game could feature a matchup of two the conference's top scorers.
Stanford's Oscar da Silva is second in the conference in scoring at 19.1 points, per game, while Washington State's Isaac Bonton is fourth at 18.4 points a contest.
However, Bonton is questionable to play after sitting out the past two games with a lower leg injury.
Washington State still took care of business against California, though, thanks to the brilliant play of guard Noah Williams, who scored a career-high 32 points in the win.
Williams added nine rebounds and seven assists in nearly producing a triple-double.
"I didn't know that Noah had that in him to be honest," Washington State head coach Kyle Smith said. "I know he's a great competitor and is fearless. He was just kind of on attack mode all night. He didn't make too many bad decisions."
Stanford won the first meeting of the season between the teams on Jan. 9, prevailing 75-60.
--Field Level Media