- WSU hoops lands a big body from Northwestern, its seventh portal pickup
PULLMAN – The Washington State men’s basketball team got another front court threat Monday.
The Cougars are adding Northwestern transfer forward Tyler Kropp, the program announced Monday morning, good for their seventh transfer of the offseason. An Ohio native, Kropp spent one year with the Wildcats.
As a true freshman, Kropp started 10 of 31 games, averaging 3.1 points and 2.1 rebounds in about 12 minutes per game. Listed at 6-foot-9 and 230 pounds, Kropp scored in double figures once, which came in an 11-point, nine-rebound effort to beat USC on the road.
Kropp will join 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.
Kropp played primarily the center position for Northwestern, which didn’t result in many opportunities for him to produce. He got more chances starring at Olentangy Liberty High School in Powell, Ohio, where he became the state’s No. 2 player and the No. 30 power forward in the class of 2025. At Olentangy Liberty, he piled up 1,095 points, which ranks second in the school’s history, and he holds the career rebounding record with 555.
As a three-star prospect, Kropp fielded offers from Miami (Ohio), Ohio, Toledo, Belmont, George Washington, Richmond, Cal Poly and others. But at Northwestern, he became a consistent rotation player, earning 10 straight starts .
Kropp, whose mother was born in Argentina, also competed for the U19 Argentina International team in the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup in Switzerland. There, he averaged 21.7 points and 9.7 rebounds across seven games. He also shot 57% from the field, earning him a spot on the all-tournament second team.
With Kropp joining the Cougars, their 2026-27 team now includes 10 players: 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.
Kropp’s addition will help WSU offset the departures of 12 players, including 10 to the transfer portal: key players Ace Glass, Tomas Thrastarson, Eemeli Yalaho, ND Okafor, Jerone Morton and Ri Vavers (signed with Memphis), reserve guards Parker Gerrits (signed with Wyoming), Brunel Madzoum, Kase Wynott, 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.
- Cougs add Providence guard Harrell, book nonconference date with High Point
PULLMAN – Another reinforcement is headed to Washington State.
The Cougars have secured a commitment from Providence transfer guard Jaylen Harrell, a source confirmed to The Spokesman-Review on Saturday, good for the program’s sixth addition of the offseason. Harrell played one season with the Friars before entering the transfer portal this spring.
Listed at 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds, Harrell played in the first six games of the season before going down with a season-ending injury, finishing with an average of 3.7 points in 9.7 minutes per game. In that span, he converted 8 of 16 field goals, including 3 of 11 from beyond the arc.
League Ready was the first to report the news.
A native of the Boston area, Harrell was 247 Sports’ top-ranked Massachusetts recruit in the class of 2025, becoming a consensus four-star prospect. He earned offers from Alabama, Washington, Rutgers, Wake Forest, Xavier, Georgetown, Virginia Tech and UMass before taking his talents to Providence.
In high school, Harrell attended St. Sebastian’s from 2021-23 before transferring to Cambridge Arts, Technology and Science Academy (CATS) for his junior and senior seasons. As a senior, Harrell averaged 22.1 points, 8.5 rebounds and 7.2 assists, recording six double-doubles and eclipsing the 30-point mark three times. He was also named the Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year in both 2024 and 2025.
Harrell’s addition fits in nicely with the Cougars’ other four, which include Wake Forest guard Sebastian Akins, TCU guard RJ Jones, East Texas A&M forward Ronnie Harrison, Manhattan forward Fraser Roxburgh and Central Missouri (DII) guard Lazerek Houston, the latter of whom averaged more than 20 points per game as a true freshman last season. All six seem to orient their games around scoring, perhaps indicating that WSU coach David Riley is ready to get back to the offensive-centric approach he used at Eastern Washington and his first WSU season in 2024.
With Harrell joining the Cougars, their 2026-27 team now includes nine players: Harrell, Harrison, 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.
That 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, ND Okafor (signed with Ole Miss), Jerone Morton and Ri Vavers (signed with Memphis); reserve guards Parker Gerrits (signed with Wyoming), Brunel Madzou and Kase Wynott (signed with Idaho); and forward Emmanuel Ugbo, who was suspended for the final nine games of the season because of a protection order against him.
The Cougars are also losing point guard Adria Rodriguez, who is 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.
WSU schedules game against High Point
The Cougars have arranged their first nonconference game of the 2026-27 season, a source also confirmed to the S-R on Saturday: a road matchup with High Point, which is set for Nov. 7 in High Point, North Carolina.
Field of 68 was the first to report that news.
It’ll be a tough matchup for WSU, which will tangle with a Panthers team that made this spring’s NCAA Tournament as a No. 12 seed, upsetting fifth-seeded Wisconsin before falling to Arkansas in the Round of 32.
It’ll be the first season in the new Pac-12 for WSU, though that schedule has yet to materialize.
Starting forward commits to Ole Miss
Forward ND Okafor, who started all 32 games for the Cougars last season, is taking his talents to SEC school Ole Miss, he announced on social media Saturday morning.
In his second and final season at WSU, the 6-foot-10 Okafor averaged 11 points and 5.7 rebounds to pair with 1.4 blocks, which ranked second in the West Coast Conference. That helped him earn an All-WCC honorable mention honor after the season.
Okafor becomes the fifth Cougar to find a new home this spring, including the second to an SEC school, joining Vanderbilt-bound Ace Glass. The others include wing shooter Ri Vavers (Memphis) as well as reserve guards Parker Gerrits (Wyoming) and Kase Wynott (Idaho).
A former transfer from Cal, where he spent the first two years of his career, Okafor was a valuable part of the Cougars’ defense each of the past two years. He flourished as a reliable shot-blocker and defensive rebounder, doing his part to shore up two areas in which his team struggled.
On top of that, Okafor might have been WSU’s most improved player this past season. He showed some real touch around the basket, a key reason he scored in double figures in 21 games, including a career-high 27 points against Southern Utah and a 21-point outing against San Diego. He looked far more comfortable around the basket this season than in his debut season with the Cougs, using better footwork and softer touch to generate easy looks on offense.
- Another big body joins the Cougs as Ladji Dembele signs on
PULLMAN – The picture of Washington State’s next roster is starting to come together.
On Thursday, the Cougars earned a commitment from UNLV transfer forward Ladji Dembele, whose decision was announced by his agency on social media. Listed at 6-foot-8 and 255 pounds, Dembele spent one year with the Runnin’ Rebels, appearing in only five games due to an injury.
A native of Newark, New Jersey, by way of Mali, Dembele played the first two years of his career at Iowa, where he played in 55 total games, including 21 starts in his second season. Dembele averaged 5.2 points at UNLV and 4.5 points in his final season with the Hawkeyes, when he played an average of 17 minutes per game.
Dembele was originally a three-star prospect out of St. Benedict’s Prep, where he fielded offers from Pittsburgh, DePaul, Wake Forest, Rutgers, Seton Hall and Xavier. He moved to Spain at the age of 13 and the United States at 17. Dembele also played for Mali’s U-19 team at the 2021 World Cup.
Dembele’s addition makes eight offseason commitments for WSU coach David Riley, whose staff has also signed 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.
But Dembele appears to be the first true big man the Cougars have landed. Kropp is listed at 6-foot-9, but his frame is a bit thinner, indicating he might play the power forward spot for WSU. What Riley and coaches hadn’t secured was a center, which is the position Dembele played most in his last season at Iowa.
Dembele 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.
