ASU Basketball: 2019 Pac-12 Week 13 Power Rankings
By Trevor Booth
11. Washington State Cougars (8-12, 1-6 Pac-12) LW: 11
If there’s one silver lining for this year’s Washington State’s basketball team, it would be that it is not dead last in the Pac-12.
Only ahead of California for last place, the Cougars have struggled during conference play to even remain competitive, with losses as large as 32 and 23 points to both Colorado and Washington.
Washington State currently has not won a road game on the season and has shown little hope to do so throughout conference play, as their struggles on both sides of the ball have proven costly through the first seven games of Pac-12 play.
The struggles date back to a late December matchup against San Diego, which began a stretch of 10 games resulting in just one victory with six of the losses, all which came in Pac-12 play, coming by way of double-digits.
The lone bright spots on the team reside in the duo of senior Robert Franks, who continues to light up opponents on his Pac-12 goodbye tour, and freshman CJ Elleby, who looks to use this season as growth going into next year.
The duo has combined to average nearly half of the team’s points at a rate of 37 points per game compared to the team’s average of 77.
While Franks narrowly leads the pair in scoring at 21 points per game compared to Elleby’s 16, it’s the freshman who does the majority of the work on the defensive end for the team.
At a team high of 12 blocks and 19 steals, Elleby has shown the potential to be a key lockdown defender for the next three seasons.