Eemeli \u201cE.Y.\u201d Yalaho, WSU\u2019s 6-foot-8 Texas Tech-transfer forward from Finland, has been to Spain, but not London.<\/p>\n
His advice for teammates new to Europe?<\/p>\n
\u201cGet ready to try new stuff and be excited about it,\u201d Yalaho said.<\/p>\n
Emmanuel Ugbo, the 6-foot-8 Boise State transfer from the Netherlands, has been to Spain, but not the two cities that WSU will visit.<\/p>\n
Ugbo was sure to advise his teammates to tell their banks they would be traveling so that their cards would not get declined and to keep their phones on airplane mode to avoid coming back to a big bill.<\/p>\n
WSU freshman Adri\u00e0 Rodriguez will explore England with Wazzu before joining the Spanish National B Team for an exhibition tournament as his country prepares for the next FIBA-hosted Eurobasket.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we\u2019re really close already, we\u2019ve only known each other for six weeks,\u201d guard Parker Gerrits said. \u201cTo hang out outside of basketball and tackle something that not a lot of people get to do is pretty exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting to know teammates<\/p>\n
As the veteran in the room by virtue of WSU experience, third-year Coug Gerrits has taken the lead in introducing his new teammates to Pullman.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people don\u2019t know about Pullman coming into it, and you gotta show them around town, show them where the good food spots are. That\u2019s almost more important than the basketball aspect,\u201d Gerrits said. \u201cMaking those guys feel comfortable and feel like a family aspect as soon as they walk through the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gerrits said the team watched the F1 movie together and has spent plenty of time getting dinners at local establishments such as Cougar Country and South Fork.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe mesh really well together, especially off the floor,\u201d Gerrits said. \u201cWe\u2019re all sitting together at dinner, we\u2019re all talking, we\u2019re all laughing, our phones are down. So it\u2019s been a lot of fun to just hang out with them and learn about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
A promise of player development<\/p>\n
Ugbo said he is familiar with Riley\u2019s player development resume and saw how the coaching staff helped guys at Eastern Washington.<\/p>\n
While the team watched the NBA draft together, they saw Cedric Coward, an alum of Riley\u2019s program, was selected No. 11 overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen the process and the progress for those guys, and I know I can go through the same trajectory,\u201d Ugbo said. \u201cI trust the coaches and I always come in to work hard. So I know I\u2019ll get better eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yalaho has done his homework on his new coaches, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very versatile. I can do a lot of different things. I can shoot, pass,\u201d Yalaho said. \u201c(Riley) brings out the strength of players, and I feel like I can fit his style very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riley said Ugbo and Yalaho fit the versatile, physical mold that he and his staff have coached in the past and wanted to recruit this past spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s got a good understanding of basketball. They\u2019re all gym rats,\u201d Riley said. \u201cIt\u2019s been crazy just to see the amount of time the guys (have) been in the gym.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got guys from all over the world, all over the country, and it\u2019s cool to see that common theme really be able to unite them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2268, staylor@lmtribune.com, or on X or Instagram @Sam_C_Taylor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eemeli \u201cE.Y.\u201d Yalaho, WSU\u2019s 6-foot-8 Texas Tech-transfer forward from Finland, has been to Spain, but not London. His…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99,27768,27769],"class_list":{"0":"post-33311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-washington-state-mens-basketball","14":"tag-wsu-mens-basketball"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}