Washington State basketball is starting over — again — and this time the stakes are bigger than the roster. The 2026-27 season is the Cougars' first back in the Pac-12, the reborn conference built from the wreckage of realignment, and David Riley's third team in Pullman has to prove it belongs in its new neighborhood. The problem, as one national preview put it: there's always been talent in Pullman under Riley. None of it sticks around.
The exodus from last season's team tells the story of modern mid-tier high-major basketball. Ace Glass, last year's star, left to start at Vanderbilt in the SEC. Jerone Morton is at Kentucky. Eemeli Yalaho, the sharpshooter, plays in the ACC at NC State. Tomas Thrastarson crossed the state to Seattle U. That's four starters or key rotation pieces gone to bigger budgets, and Riley — operating with one of the smaller NIL war chests in power-conference-adjacent basketball — had to rebuild the roster from scratch for the second time in three years. It's the cycle that defines his tenure: find talent, develop it, watch it leave, repeat.
The 2026-27 roster is a fascinating mix of reclamation projects and hidden gems. The headliners: Ronnie Harrison, a 6-foot-8 senior forward from East Texas A&M who led the Lions in scoring and rebounding (14.7 ppg, 6.1 rpg); Lazerek Houston, the freshman guard from Central Missouri who dominated Division II as a rookie — 20.8 points, 5.1 assists, MIAA Player and Freshman of the Year, D2CCA All-Central Region Player of the Year — and picked WSU over Boise State; and RJ Jones, the 6-foot-2 junior guard from TCU with high-major pedigree. Sebastian Akins arrives from Wake Forest, where he played in all 35 games last season; Tyler Kropp comes from Northwestern; Ladji Dembele from UNLV; Casey Jones from Eastern Washington. The international pipeline Riley loves is well stocked: Fraser Roxburgh (Manhattan, by way of Melbourne), Pedro Sancho Moraga (Spain), Roman Stathis (Australia), and 6-foot-10 French center Mohamed Sankhe, the final addition to the roster. If even two of the reclamation guards hit, this backcourt could surprise.
Riley's own path explains the program's ethos. A Whitworth graduate who won big at the Division III level, then turned Eastern Washington into a Big Sky power, he was hired in 2024 to replace Kyle Smith — who left for Stanford after delivering WSU's first NCAA bid in 16 years. Riley's second season started like a dream: 13-3 through non-conference play with wins over Boise State and San Francisco. Then the WCC grind hit, the Cougars went 6-12 in league play, and the season ended with a quarterfinal loss to San Francisco. Picked sixth in the preseason poll, WSU finished about where expected — which is the polite way of saying the program still hasn't found its ceiling.
The new-look Pac-12 is the great unknown. Gonzaga anchors the league, Oregon State is back, and the conference's basketball identity is still being written. For Washington State, the return to the Pac-12 is a homecoming with teeth: bigger stages, better TV, tougher road trips, and a direct recruiting pitch that Pullman is a power-conference-adjacent program again. The flip side is that the league's heavyweights — Gonzaga especially — will happily remind the Cougars how far they have to climb. SI's early power rankings slotted WSU ninth, citing the limited budget and the annual roster churn. Fair, but Riley's teams have a habit of outperforming September expectations.
The history in Pullman is richer than the recent record suggests. The 1941 Cougars played for the national championship, losing to Wisconsin in the title game. Tony Bennett's teams in 2007 and 2008 were the modern peak: the 2007-08 squad earned a No. 4 seed, beat Winthrop and Notre Dame, and reached the Sweet 16 before falling to North Carolina. Klay Thompson starred from 2008 to 2011 before becoming a four-time NBA champion with Golden State. Kyle Smith's 2023-24 team — 25 wins, a No. 7 seed, a first-round date with Iowa State — was the program's first tournament team in 16 years. Beasley Coliseum, opened in 1973 with "Go Cougs" painted on the roof, remains one of the West's great quirky barns.
The Apple Cup rivalry with Washington gives every season its emotional center, even with the schools now in different leagues. The Cougars and Huskies have been playing since 1910, and the basketball version — often overshadowed by the football game — has produced its share of classics. With UW in the Big Ten and WSU in the new Pac-12, the rivalry games are now non-conference events, which somehow makes them feel bigger: two programs, two conferences, one state, all pride.
What defines the 2026-27 Cougars is the tension between ambition and arithmetic. Riley is a genuinely good coach — his player development track record is excellent, and his teams play connected, intelligent basketball. But in the portal era, development is a farm system for richer programs, and WSU's budget means every offseason is a rebuild. The Pac-12 return raises the ceiling and the floor at once: better league, better exposure, harder games. If Harrison and Houston become the one-two punch the roster needs, and the reclamation guards find their games, Washington State can be the new league's surprise. If the churn wins again, it'll be another year of "wait till they gel" in Pullman. The Cougs have been waiting a long time for a season where the talent stays.