Cougar Notes: WSU loses Leger-Walker to Bruins, Wells to portal

Apr. 26—In the span of a couple hours, Washington State lost arguably its best women's basketball player of all time and might be without its best returning men's basketball player.

WSU guard Charlisse Leger-Walker announced Thursday on social media she is transferring to the UCLA women's basketball team.

A couple of hours earlier, a report surfaced that WSU forward Jaylen Wells is entering the NCAA transfer portal.

The transfer carousel continues to go 'round — and not in a good way for the Cougs.

Leger-Walker to the Bruins

Just over a year after Leger-Walker led the underdog, seventh-seeded Cougars over UCLA in the Pac-12 championship game, she announced she will join the Bruins.

Leger-Walker helped spearhead a WSU era that saw the women's basketball team advance to three straight NCAA tournaments and win the school's first ever Pac-12 women's title in any team sport in the 2022-23 season.

The Cougars coincidentally missed the NCAA tourney for the first time in four years after Leger-Walker suffered a season-ending knee injury in the middle of the 2023-24 campaign.

The 5-foot-10 senior superstar had one year of eligibility remaining, but had been planning to go pro before injuring her knee — also coincidentally — in a win against UCLA on Jan. 28 at Pauley Pavilion.

Leger-Walker averaged 16.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game in four years at WSU, earning All-American accolades and several All-Pac-12 honors along the way.

Her best season came as a freshman in 2020-21 when she averaged 18.8 points per contest playing alongside her older sister, Krystal Leger-Walker.

Charlisse Leger-Walker, who hails from Waikato, New Zealand, became the youngest player to ever suit up for the New Zealand women's national team when she joined the Tall Ferns at just 16 years old.

Wells reportedly enters portal

Washington State's best returning men's basketball player and the only returning starter left on the roster is the latest Cougar to enter the NCAA transfer portal, per reports.

Rising senior Wells was set to be the Cougars' biggest start next season, if he returned, but now he might be the latest to instead be playing for another team in the fall.

The 6-foot-8 forward was already testing the NBA draft waters with the option to return to school.

ESPN NBA draft analyst Jonathan Givony was the first to report the news.

Wells was the third-leading scorer and best 3-point shooter on a Cougar team that went to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 16 years last season. WSU also finished No. 2 in the conference in the last season of the Pac-12.

Wells averaged 12.6 points per game and shot 42% from 3-point range as a junior and was the only double-digit scorer from last season still expected to return.

In total, the WSU men's team has lost 12 players to either graduation or the transfer portal, including its top eight scorers.

That group includes guard Myles Rice (Indiana), forward Andrej Jakimovski (Colorado), center Rueben Chinyelu (Florida), center Oscar Cluff (South Dakota State), guard Jabe Mullins (Montana State) and guard Dylan Darling (Idaho State), who all have found new homes.

The Cougars also lost star forward Isaac Jones to graduation.

Wells, a former NCAA Division II star at Sonoma State (Calif.), had his biggest moment when he scored 27 points and made a go-ahead four-point play to defeat No. 4 Arizona on Feb. 22.

Even with all the losses, the Cougars have some returning and new pieces to be excited about next year. Those include budding guard Isaiah Watts, who showed star potential off the bench late in the season; Eastern Washington transfers Ethan Price and LeJuan Watts, who each bring with them a host of Big Sky honors; and Lapwai commitment Kase Wynott, who is Idaho's all-time leading scorer at the prep ranks.

WSU men add two assistant coaches

New WSU coach David Riley added two familiar faces to his coaching staff, it was announced.

Riley named two of his former Eastern Washington assistants to his staff this week in Jerry Brown and Donald Brady.

Both coached with Riley last season during the Eagles' run to earning the Big Sky regular-season championship.

Prior to joining Riley at EWU, Brown spent the 2022-23 season as an assistant at Denver University. He also had stops at San Diego (2019-22), Stanford (2019), UTEP (2018-19) and the NBA's Detroit Pistons (2017-18).

Before joining the Eagles, Brady came up the coaching ranks in western Washington, serving as the head coach at Shoreline Community College and Bellevue College, both of which he helped lead to league titles.

Wiebe may be contacted at (208) 848-2260, swiebe@lmtribune.com or on Twitter @StephanSports.