- WSU dips back into Australia for a 6-7 wing named Stathis
PULLMAN – To earn their latest signing, Washington State coaches returned to the international pipeline.
The Cougars are signing Australian wing Roman Stathis, the program announced Friday, their 10th addition this spring. Listed at 6-foot-7, Stathis hails from Sydney, Australia.
Stathis spent last year at Golden State Prep in Napa, California, a postgraduate academy for players to hone their skills. Beyond that, there is little public information available about Stathis, whose best attributes seem to center around hitting catch-and-shoot 3s and attacking closeouts on offense.
Because of the depth the Cougs have established with recent signings, it’s possible that Stathis takes a redshirt year in his first season at WSU, whose 2026-27 roster nearly complete. In a Zoom news conference earlier this week, coach David Riley indicated that the team has only one more new addition to announce, which is expected to come next week.
With Stathis joining the Cougars, their 2026-27 team now includes 12 players: Stathis, Oregon transfer guard Jamari Phillips, UNLV transfer Ladji Dembele, Northwestern transfer Tyler Kropp, Providence guard Jaylen Harrell, Wake Forest guard Sebastian Akins, Central Missouri (DII) transfer Lazerek Houston, Manhattan transfer Fraser Roxburgh, TCU transfer RJ Jones, Eastern Washington transfer Casey Jones. They also have signed incoming freshman Brayden Kyman and returners Dominik Robinson and walk-on guard Dio Blakely.
Phillips will help WSU offset the departures of 12 players, including 10 to the transfer portal: Ace Glass (signed with Vanderbilt), Tomas Thrastarson, Eemeli Yalaho (committed to NC State), ND Okafor (committed to Ole Miss), Jerone Morton and Ri Vavers (signed with Memphis); reserve guards Parker Gerrits (signed with Wyoming), Brunel Madzoum and Kase Wynott (signed with Idaho); and forward Emmanuel Ugbo. Ugbo was suspended for the final nine games of the season because of a protection order against him.
The Cougars also lost point guard Adria Rodriguez, who headed back to his home country of Spain on a professional contract, as well as Simon Hildebrandt, who exhausted his college eligibility. In all, that’s 12 departures for the Cougars, who are set to return only two players from last season’s team: Robinson, who redshirted his true freshman season, and Blakely.
- Riley's mystery big man is 6-10 and French, welcome Mohamed Sankhe
PULLMAN – Washington State has landed the final piece of its next men’s basketball roster.
The Cougars have officially landed French big man Mohamed Sankhe, he announced on social media on Thursday, becoming the final player on coach David Riley’s 2026-27 team. Listed at 6-foot-10, Sankhe is the mysterious post player Riley had been alluding to in news conferences since the spring.
Born in Senegal, Sankhe most recently played for Jean D’Arc Vichy Clermont Metropole in French Pro B, the second-tier pro hoops league in France. Across 41 games in the last international season, Sankhe averaged 5.3 points, 5.5 rebounds in 18 minutes per game, shooting an efficient 54% from the field.
More recently in this summer’s U20 Euro Championships, Sankhe averaged 10 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, turning in a similarly efficient field goal percentage of 56%, leading France to the semifinals. He scored in double-digits twice, including a double-double against Croatia (18 points, 11 rebounds) and an 11-point outing against Germany, including nine rebounds that game. He did not record any blocked shots in that span.
It’s unclear what kind of role Sankhe will play this upcoming season, but at the very least, he gives the Cougars some needed size. WSU has two traditional big men on the roster, including 6-foot-8 UNLV transfer Ladji Dembele and 6-foot-10 returner Dominik Robinson. They also have 6-foot-9 Northwestern transfer Tyler Kropp, but he’s expected to play the small forward or power forward spots for Riley’s team.
What the Cougs might have been lacking is a true big man, which came back to bite last season’s team, which often struggled to contain opposing big men with real size. That could be where they enjoy the presence of Sankhi, who collected four games with double-digit rebounds last international season, including one with 13 boards and another with 12. He figures to have little trouble hitting the glass for WSU.
Sankhe appears to be a true post player. Last international season, which included 41 games from September 2025 to this April, he did not attempt a single 3-pointer. In that way, he doesn’t fit the mold of a traditional Riley stretch big, but WSU does have a player like that in Dembele, who has shot 33% on 1.1 attempts from deep in his 70-game college career.
Can Sankhe be a true rim protector? That much is unclear. Last international season, Sankhe averaged just 0.4 blocks per game. That’s the kind of number you might expect from a guard, not a 6-foot-10 center. To his credit, he did record three games with two blocks, and he was playing fewer than 20 minutes per game. But Sankhe might have to become a more imposing rim defender for the Cougars to flourish on defense in his minutes.
Sankhe makes three international player’s on this WSU team, including Spanish freshman guard Pedro Sancha Moraga and Australia native Roman Stathis. Sankhe is also the 13th newcomer on the Cougars’ roster, joining a bevy of transfers from around the country that Riley used to restock a depleted roster from the offseason.
Those include East Texas A&M transfer forward Ronnie Harrison, Kropp, Providence transfer wing Jaylen Harrell, Central Missouri (DII) transfer guard Lazerek Houston, TCU transfer guard RJ Jones, Wake Forest transfer guard Sebastian Akins, Moraga, Stathis, Manhattan transfer forward Fraser Roxburgh, Dembele, Eastern Washington transfer wing Casey Jones (who was previously on a two-year church mission), Oregon transfer guard Jamari Phillips and freshman forward Brayden Kyman.
- Another Duck lands in Pullman as Cougs snag Jamari Phillips
PULLMAN – The Washington State men are adding another transfer from the Power 4 ranks.
The Cougars have signed Oregon transfer guard Jamari Phillips, a source confirmed to The Spokesman-Review on Monday, good for their ninth addition of the spring. Phillips spent two years with the Ducks.
Listed at 6-foot-4 and 190 pounds, Phillips appeared in 40 games at Oregon, including 26 in his second and final season there. Last season, he averaged 2.7 points in 11 minutes per game, his best game coming in a nine-point outing in 31 minutes against UCLA.
247 Sports was the first to report the news about Phillips, who joins several players to transfer to WSU this spring, including UNLV forward Ladji Dembele, Northwestern forward Tyler Kropp, former Wake Forest guard Sebastian Akins, Providence transfer guard Jaylen Harrell, TCU transfer guard RJ Jones, Central Missouri transfer guard Lazerek Houston, Manhattan transfer forward Fraser Roxburgh and East Texas A&M transfer wing Ronnie Harrison.
Phillips, who also played in 14 games off the bench as a true freshman at Oregon, was once a four-star prospect in the class of 2024 out of Dream City Christian in the Phoenix area. He earned offers from Kansas, Arizona, ASU, UCLA, USC, Louisville and others – including WSU and its former staff.
Phillips started his high school career at Modesto Christian in California, where he was named the Sacramento Bee’s Player of the Year.
With Phillips joining the Cougars, their 2026-27 team now includes 11 players: Phillips, Dembele, Kropp, Harrell, Akins, Houston, Roxburgh, Jones, Eastern Washington transfer Casey Jones (who spent the last two years on a church mission), incoming freshman Brayden Kyman and returners Dominik Robinson and walk-on guard Dio Blakely.
Phillips will help WSU offset the departures of 12 players, including 10 to the transfer portal: key players Ace Glass (signed with Vanderbilt), Tomas Thrastarson, Eemeli Yalaho (committed to NC State), ND Okafor (committed to Ole Miss), Jerone Morton and Ri Vavers (signed with Memphis); reserve guards Parker Gerrits (signed with Wyoming), Brunel Madzoum and Kase Wynott (signed with Idaho); and forward Emmanuel Ugbo. Ugbo was suspended for the final nine games of the season because of a protection order against him.
The Cougars also lost point guard Adria Rodriguez, who headed back to his home country of Spain on a professional contract, as well as Simon Hildebrandt, who exhausted his college eligibility. In all, that’s 12 departures for the Cougars, who are set to return only two players from last season’s team: Robinson, who redshirted his true freshman season, and Blakely.
