A strong effort off the bench from Emmanuel Ugbo and Ace Glass helped get Washington State back in the win column, defeating the Eastern Washington Eagles 78-63.
Ugbo scored a career-high 20 points off the bench for WSU (4-8) while freshman Ace Glass bounced back to outscore his last two games combined with 14 points.
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The Cougars put together a strong first half, shooting 58.1% from the field and 42.9% from distance. Ugbo scored 14 of his 20 in the first 20 minutes of the game, including a stretch where he scored 10 straight for WSU. The early hot start helped WSU build a lead as big as 18 in the first half.
While the first half was a breath of fresh air from how WSU has played in their five-game losing skid, the second half wasn’t as sharp and looked too familiar. The offense was far less efficient, shooting a moderate 45.2% from the field and only hitting 3-14 from beyond the arc. The turnover bug also came back as WSU doubled up their first-half total, turning it over 10 times in the final 20 minutes. EWU (2-9) made things interesting in the closing minutes, going on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to single digits with 2:40 to play, but a pair of Tomas Thrastarson inside buckets put any thoughts of a collapse to rest as the Cougars were able to finish with a 15-point win.
A much-needed win for the Cougars to snap their losing skid over a team they are expected to beat. Only one more game out of conference for WSU as they will host the Mercer Bears on Saturday back in Pullman.
