Washington State’s 1,700-acre campus sits in the midst of the rolling hills of eastern Washington, surrounded by wheat fields on every side. Pullman’s airport is serviced by one airline, and only flies to and from Seattle.
Wazzu junior guard Noah Williams confirms what appears obvious based only on a cursory Google Earth search: “There’s literally nothing to do in Pullman.”
With the exception of two magical years under Tony Bennett, the men’s basketball program has rarely made winters exciting in the rural college town. Washington State has made the men’s NCAA tournament just six times in program history, most recently in 2008. In the KenPom era (since 1997), WSU has finished worse than 200th on the analytics site as many times (three) as it has finished in the top 50. Before coach Kyle Smith’s arrival from San Francisco in 2019, the program hadn’t finished in the…
