The last time the Washington women’s basketball team played cross-state rival Washington State, Charlisse Leger-Walker exploded for a career-high 40 points in UW’s 82-66 win three weeks ago.
When the Huskies play at noon Sunday at Beasley Coliseum, the Cougars might not have their star guard and the Pac-12 leading scorer (at 21.1 points per game), who went home to New Zealand last week to deal with a family issue and has missed the past two games.
“I can’t really say yet,” WSU coach Kamie Ethridge said Thursday during her weekly news conference. “We’re still in a waiting pattern a little bit right now.
“The best thing I can say — and I said this to the team — is when we get Charlisse back I know we’ll be a better team. … She’ll be on the floor and secondly, we’ll be a better team because we didn’t have her on the floor for however long it will be. We’re still working on that process and trying to improve ourselves before she gets back and hope that we have players who will step up and take some of that load off of her.”
Without the 5-foot-10 sophomore, Washington State (10-4, 0-3) lost 71-66 to No. 8 Utah and 65-54 to Colorado, which puts more pressure on the Cougars to notch their first conference win Sunday.
“Obviously, we have a lot of things to work on,” Ethridge said. “It’s not just UW, it’s kind of more who are we going to be and what are we going to be. We walk into this game 0-3 in the Pac-12. We got a big mountain to climb, and we want to put a good showing on against our rival.”
Washington (9-4, 1-2) also needs a win following a pair of home losses to Colorado (64-56) and Utah (61-53).
“Sometimes it’s good to be able to get on the road and just be together and have all the distractions away from you,” coach Tina Langley said. “This is a close team. We’ve enjoyed traveling together this year. It’ll give us a chance to keep growing and learning together.”
The Huskies enjoyed their best performance of the season in a dominant win over the Cougars on Dec. 11.
Lauren Schwartz scored 21 points to lead five Huskies in double-digit scoring while Dalayah Daniels finished with 12 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and two blocks.
It was a rare offensive explosion for Washington, which is last in the Pac-12 in scoring at 65.1 points per game.
Aside from Leger-Walker — who connected on 14 of 26 shots, including seven three-pointers — WSU players scored 26 points on 10-for-39 shooting.
“We got to get our offensive game going and clearly find some ways to keep the game down a little bit,” Ethridge said. “We can’t be in the 80s again.”