There’s a Riley in the coaching box at Wazzu
First-year Washington State basketball coach David Riley, nephew of former Oregon State football coach Mike Riley, takes his Cougars into a Saturday matchup with the University of Portland at Chiles Center
When Washington State visits The Bluff Saturday for a 5 p.m. game at the University of Portland, the Cougars will be bringing along not only a 10-3 record but one of the youngest Division I head coaches in the country.
It is David Riley, 36, in his first season at the Wazzu helm after three seasons as head coach at Eastern Washington.
Riley made his debut as WSU’s coach with a 100-92 victory over Portland State on Nov. 4. The Cougars hold victories over the likes of Fresno State, Nevada and Boise State, with losses on the road to Iowa and Washington and against SMU in Palm Desert, Calif.
“It has been good,” Riley told me Thursday in a phone conversation from Pullman. “Having that kind of start with a bunch of new faces, we have shown what we can do. We would like to have won a couple of more of those games. We have some things we can do to get even better.”
If the Riley name sounds familiar to state-of-Oregon sports fans, it ought to be. His uncle, Mike Riley, coached Oregon State football for 14 years. David’s brother, who played football at Lewis & Clark, is currently a defensive analyst for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens.
“David was destined to be a coach,” says Mike Riley, now retired and living in Corvallis. “It was pretty easy to forecast he was going to be coaching, but hard to predict that he would get a job at a school like Washington State at such a young age.”
Mike and David’s other uncle, Pete Riley, will be in the stands Saturday along with David’s father, Ed Riley, Mike’s younger brother who is professor emeritus at the Stanford Medical School. Ed, now living in Seattle, is semi-retired and working part-time after serving in the school’s department of anesthesiology for 34 years.
David Riley succeeded Kyle Smith, who coached the Cougars to a 25-10 record and the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2023-24. Smith departed for Stanford after the season.
Riley won 18 games his first season at Eastern Washington, then notched back-to-back Big Sky Conference regular-season titles, running up a collective record of 62-38.
The first season, he was a finalist for the Joe B. Hall Award as the nation’s top first-year coach. Riley was honored as Big Sky Coach of the Year the past two seasons.
During an introductory press conference in April, Washington State athletic director Anne McCoy called Riley, who signed a six-year contract, a “players’ coach. … he epitomizes everything our student-athletes identify as important.”
Riley called the Washington State coaching position his “dream job,” adding, “It’s the perfect spot for how I want to run a program.”
He also told reporters that his immediate goal was to have “the most cohesive team in the country,” and that he wanted to have every non-senior from the 2023-24 Wazzu squad back for this season.
That turned out to be a pipe dream. Only one letterman — sophomore guard Isaiah Watts, grandson of former SuperSonics guard Slick Watts — stayed. Riley wound up with Watts and 10 transfers, including four players he brought along from Eastern Washington. One of them, 6-11 senior Dane Erikstrup, is a graduate of Beaverton High.
With an almost entirely new cast, Riley has already put together a surprisingly cohesive group.
“It doesn’t just come overnight,” he says. “We have a bunch of guys who understand the value of (cohesion) and are really trying to build that. Now that we’re starting to go through the fires together, the guys have put themselves out there to become a team. We’re getting there.”
If coaches were allowed mulligans, Riley would opt for an 89-73 loss at Washington on Dec. 18 in which the Huskies scored 54 points in the second half.
“No doubt about that,” he says with a laugh. “That was one we wish we could get a redo on. But we learned valuable lessons in all three of our losses.”
Riley has faced some immediate adversity. Four of his top eight players are injured, two of them for the season. Senior guard Cedric Coward — unanimous first-team All-Big Sky at Eastern last season — and freshman guard Marcus Wilson are both lost with shoulder injuries. Watts and sophomore forward Rihards Vavers are currently sidelined with hand injuries.
“That has been tough,” Riley acknowledges. “At the same time, we have a group that has enough talent to win games.”
Riley points out that last year WSU team was picked to finish last in the Pac-12. The Cougars finished second with a conference record of 14-6.
“They ended up being (an NCAA) tournament team,” he says. “We have the guys who can get that done, too.”
Riley grew up in a house located on the Stanford campus.
“As a youngster, David broke into Maples Pavilion to play pickup games as much as we broke into Gill Coliseum when we were kids,” his father says.
During those years, David watched his uncle Mike coach Oregon State in games at Stanford every other year. And at least once a year, his family would venture to Oregon to watch the Beavers play in Corvallis.
“Watching him enjoy what he does and lead a team was inspiring and opened that door to coaching for me,” David says.
Mike’s father, Bud Riley, coached under Dee Andros at Oregon State and later was head coach for three franchises in the Canadian Football League.
“Bud was a huge influence, too,” David says. “Hearing stories over Thanksgiving and Christmas from those two — the different things they were able to accomplish, the people they were able to help and the relationships they were able to build — was inspirational.”
A 6-5 guard, David Riley was a four-year starter and three-time All-Northwest Conference selection at Whitworth in Spokane, his father’s alma mater. Ed Riley was a three-year starter at quarterback and also played basketball at Whitworth.
A true student-athlete, David graduated in mathematical economics.
“It was a lot of math and computer science stuff,” he says, adding with a laugh, “I’m not using much of it now.”
For a minute, Riley thought about using his degree for a career. “Maybe go down to Silicon Valley and try to do something techie,” he says.
But the lure of coaching was strong. For 13 years, Riley, who also has a masters degree in sports administration, coached at Eastern. For three seasons, he served as a grad assistant under Jim Hayford. For seven he was as an assistant under Hayford and Shantay Legans, and the final three he reigned as head coach.
During Riley’s first season as a full-time assistant, 2014-15, the Eagles were 26-9 and made the NCAA Tournament. Guard Tyler Harvey, who came to the program as a walk-on, was the nation’s leading scorer that season and got drafted by the Orlando Magic.
Riley runs what he calls a “concept-based” offense. Last season, the Eagles ranked fourth in the nation in field goal percentage (.501) and 24th in assists, the emphasis on getting good shots.
“It is based on stringing two or three simple reads together to create an advantage,” he says. “I give the guys a lot of freedom as long as they play together and try to make reads for each other.”
Riley’s system is malleable. During his final eight seasons in Cheney, the Eagles had five players honored as Most Valuable Player in the Big Sky, “and they were all different types of players,” he says.
Two summers ago, Mike Riley took his grandson Eli to David’s youth camp in Cheney.
“I got to see David in his role as head coach on campus and interact with some of the players working in the camp,” Mike says. “I could tell it was a really good scene — a very positive place for basketball. I have watched him coach the last couple of seasons, and you can tell he is very thoughtful with his approach to coaching. He has an eye on things that are going on. He is very aware and active coaching during a game.”
David says “family, trust and commitment are the three pillars I want to build on for the identity of our program.” He loves being in a college town and the challenge of facing big-brand programs.
“The underdog mentality that we have connects with me,” he says.
For the next two seasons, Washington State and Oregon State will be affiliate members of the West Coast Conference.
“It is a great conference, with some of the best teams in the country,” Riley says. “Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s were both in the top 20 in NET rankings last season. The WCC commissioner (Stu Jackson) texted me yesterday with a crazy stat — we have six teams in the top 76 right now this season. That’s up there with any league in the country.”
Does Riley look forward to the 2026-27 season, when the Cougars and Beavers move into the newly formed Pac-12 along with the likes of Gonzaga, San Diego State, Nevada, Boise State and Utah State?
“Absolutely,” he says. “That is going to be one of the best conferences in the country, no doubt.”
When I ask Riley how he feels about the effects of NIL and the transfer portal on college basketball, he pauses before answering.
“It is difficult to navigate anything that changes every year,” he says finally. “I love college basketball. It is a perfect place to develop as a player and as a person. I believe that is what college is for.
“(The transfer portal and NIL) is making that tough, but I have been lucky. I have been able to coach some of these guys for three or four years now (at Eastern and now WSU). There is still a path for continuity and development if you do it the right way and get guys who have bought in. The same goals and values are there. But there is a lot of change.”
On Saturday, Riley faces an old cohort — Legans, now in his fourth season as the Pilots’ head coach.
“We came up in the business together,” Riley says. “I worked with him for 10 years. He and Jim Hayford are huge influences on my career. It will be interesting going up against Shantay on Saturday.”
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