There have been tons of predictions for WSU Basketball next season, I for one think we will be pretty decent next season… but the NCAA tournament is not a for sure thing. Many people think Bone should be fired if he doesn’t make it… that isn’t the case, he should have one more season after this. No question this is best chance of making the tourney though… he is not going to have a lot of leadership after this season with Ladd, Moore, and Motum gone. I won’t give out my full prediction just yet… until we find out who gets in and who doesn’t qualify and if we get a transfer or one of the few bigs who are still on board. Longrus & Boese are both very talented players, but Longrus will see more playing time… I am very excited to see the devolvement of Guard DaVonte Lacy. He’s going to be a great player for us over the years.
We should finish in the top 5 of the Pac-12 next season and just barely get in the tournament. It will definitely be a fun season to watch, compared to last season. Along with the great players we have now, 2013 will be a very loaded class and I expect Bone to land a big name guy, like he did this year in Demarquise Johnson. In my opinion he will definitely have a great career at Washington State, if he gets into school… which is still in question.
Reggie Moore has gotten severe criticism throughout his career… last season he showed that he was one of the top Point Guards in the conference. If he can do what he did last season… plus what he did down the stretch, shooting more and getting more points instead of just passing all the time, we will be pretty fine next season and make the tourney. Along with Reggie, Lacy needs to be a better ball handler and more consistent in his jump shots… he struggled at the end of the season, but that was mainly on all his injuries.
A few players to watch out for next season who we will need to contribute to win key games are DJ Shelton and the transfer from Kansas, Royce Woolridge. Woolridge will be our backup PG and he really is a special player. DJ needs to get a little better around the rim, but they both should be decent contributors next season. I have not mentioned Motum much, but that is because we all know the man is a beast. Just needs to get a little bigger and will definitely be that much better after playing a lot of ball back home.
I’ll be sure to come back and update this after we find out who qualified and who didn’t and if we got any new commits coming into the program. That should and will determine how well we do.
GO COUGS!!!