Washington State hits the road for the first time in the 2020-21 season as a two-week road trip to California begins with a trip to Cal.

Last season, the Bears took both games in the season series, including a 73-66 win at Berkeley. Cal has won three-straight against the Cougs and holds an 82-51 record all-time.

The Bears dropped a pair of games last week and saw leading scorer Matt Bradley (17.8 ppg), suffer an ankle injury at Oregon State. The Bears are 5-6 overall and 0-4 in Pac-12 play, having dropped games to Arizona State, UCLA, Oregon, and Oregon State (twice including a non-conference game to start the year).

The Cougs enter the week coming off a loss for the first time on the year after dropping a double-OT game to Arizona (86-82) last Saturday in Pullman. The loss snapped a 9-game winning streak for the Cougs, the fifth longest streak in the NCAA. WSU was down four players due to Covid-19 protocol.

Efe Abogidi continues his rise to stardom after posting 12 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 highlight reel blocks against Arizona. He now has 20 blocks, tied for 6th most in freshman history.

WSU enters the game as one of the top defensive units in the country, ranking #1 in defensive FG% (.342) and #3 in defensive effective FG% (.391) as well as #25 in scoring defense (60.8).

The Cougs are looking to win their road opener for the first time since 2010-11 when they defeated Fresno State, 66-55 (Nov. 26, 2010) and their first conference road opener since the 2016-17 season when WSU defeated Washington in the conference opener.

It is the only road opening conference win for the Cougs since the conference became the Pac-12.

FRESHMAN FRONT COURT: Entering the year as one of the youngest teams in the conference, the Cougs youth has been served as the freshmen have taken over on the Palouse. Against Arizona, freshmen Efe Abogidi, Andrej Jakimovski, and Dishon Jackson (1st career start) became the first trio of true freshmen to start a game for WSU for the first time since March 9, 2006 vs Oregon at the Pac-10 Tournament (Aaron Baynes, Caleb Forrest, Chris Matthews).

The trio finished the game with a combined 34 points on 22 FG attempts, 22 rebounds, 3 blocks and only 3 turnovers. On the year, Abogidi has started all 9 games (23.7 mpg) while Jakimovski has started 7 games (25.9 mpg). In addition Jackson is averaging 10 mpg while TJ Bamba off the bench averaged 10.8 mpg. Freshman Carlos Rosario played 7 min. in his debut against Arizona.

Modified January 2021 Schedule