guard
Wazzu keeps guard in one place: 3 stories so far. The section currently leads with “David Riley says next year's roster has more talent walking in than last year's”, “Cougs just landed TCU guard RJ Jones. Welcome back to the Big 12”, and “Another Duck lands in Pullman as Cougs snag Jamari Phillips”. David Riley isn't sugarcoating last season. RJ Jones is a Coug. The unofficial read for people who left Pullman and stayed Cougs. The list below is every guard story on Wazzu, newest first.
David Riley says next year's roster has more talent walking in than last year's
David Riley isn't sugarcoating last season. 12-20 stinks. He knows it. We know it. But he's got a new roster, and he's not shy about the upgrade. "We have a lot more talent walking in the door than we did last year," Riley said Friday. That's not coachspeak. That's a guy who watched his entire starting five walk out for a combined $10 million in NIL deals elsewhere. Ace Glass to Vanderbilt. ND Okafor to Mississippi State. All of them. Riley's take? He 10x'd their value. Good for them. But now he's got to win with the next wave. And the next wave is eleven newcomers. Nine from the portal, one freshman, one prep alum. Plus two returners. That's almost a full teardown and rebuild in one spring. Riley says the timing helped this time, players bailed early, so the staff had more runway to find replacements. Last year's chaos didn't repeat. The names are interesting. Sebastian Akins from Wake Forest is a physical guard who can score at all three levels. Lazerek Houston is a DII MVP with pro potential. Ladji Dembele brings a 7-2 wingspan from Iowa and UNLV. Riley thinks this group has higher confidence and higher talent than last year's haul. We'll see. But it's worth noting the Cougs also just scheduled Duke in Palm Springs for November. That's a measuring stick. And the Battle of the Palouse is back for two years, which means more games that actually mean something to people who live here.
Cougs just landed TCU guard RJ Jones. Welcome back to the Big 12
RJ Jones is a Coug. The TCU guard committed to Washington State after an official visit last weekend, giving David Riley another piece for a roster that needed about a dozen of them. Jones is a 6-foot-2 guard who started at Kansas State, spent two seasons at TCU, and has a four-star pedigree. He also has a 14-point night against Florida A&M on his résumé, which is more than most of us have. The highlight of his TCU career came last November. That matters because last season, he barely played, nine games total, averaging 2.6 points. He redshirted this past year. So Riley is betting on the talent that once drew offers from USC, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Notre Dame. That is a bet worth making when you have lost 12 players, including 10 to the portal and your best freshman to the SEC. Jones joins Central Missouri transfer Lazerek Houston and Manhattan transfer Fraser Roxburgh as Riley's third addition. The Cougars are essentially building a new team from scratch. Only two players return from last season: Dominik Robinson, who redshirted, and walk-on Dio Blakely. Jones is a scorer who needs a stage. Pullman is a good place to find one. Welcome back to the Big 12, kid. For more on how Riley is stacking the roster, check out our story on the 6-8 forward who likes to score. Go Cougs.
Another Duck lands in Pullman as Cougs snag Jamari Phillips
Another Duck lands in Pullman. That's three now, if you're counting, and the Cougs just added Oregon transfer guard Jamari Phillips. He's a 6-foot-4, 190-pound guard who saw the floor in 40 games across two seasons with the Ducks. Last year he averaged 2.7 points in 11 minutes a night. His best night? A nine-point showing against UCLA in 31 minutes. Not eye-popping, but the kid was a four-star prospect out of high school. Kansas, Arizona, UCLA, Louisville all wanted him. WSU's former staff offered him too. Now he's a Coug. Phillips is the ninth addition this spring for David Riley's rebuild. The roster is essentially a new team. Eleven players are on board for 2026-27, including the Eastern Washington transfer Casey Jones who just got back from a church mission. That's the kind of detail you only get in Pullman. They needed bodies. Twelve players left, including ten to the portal. Ace Glass is at Vanderbilt. Eemeli Yalaho committed to NC State. ND Okafor to Ole Miss. That's a lot of production walking out the door. But Riley keeps saying the incoming talent is stronger than last year's. We wrote about that in "David Riley says next year's roster has more talent walking in than last year's." Worth a read if you want the full picture on how he's thinking about this. Phillips won't carry the offense by himself. But he's another Power 4 body with upside. And for a program that lost basically everyone, that's a start.