Growing up in Lissone, Italy, just north of Milan, Ele (Eleonora) Villa and twin sister Mati (Matilde) did everything together. Most of it involved basketball. They learned the game from their father, who had played, and attended big brother Edoardo’s games.
And naturally, they spent years together as teammates. “Between the two of us, it’s more of a natural competition. I wouldn’t say rivalry but we always push (to get) the best from each other, to improve and learn from each other.”
Two years ago, when Washington State coach Kamie Ethridge was recruiting the twins, Mati couldn’t make the trip to Pullman due to a conflict in her schedule. Ele (pronounced Ellie) came by herself, fell in love with the place and committed to the Cougars. “Best decision I could ever make,” she said.
But it also meant that for the first time in their lives, the sisters would be apart.
It’s worked out well for both. Ele, now a sophomore, averaged 12.9 points a year ago, landing a spot on the five-player Pac-12 All-Freshman team alongside USC star JuJu Watkins. Now, with WSU and Oregon State having joined the West Coast Conference as two-year affiliate members, Villa is the top scorer (14.2 points) on a WSU team tied for first place.
Mati signed an amateur contract with Venezia, the reigning champion in the top Italian professional league, and last summer was chosen by the Atlanta Dream in the third round of the WNBA draft.
Mati remains with her Italian team, at least for now, but in August made the trip to the U.S. when it was time for Ele to return to campus.
“This summer she came with me for the first time and she loved everything about Pullman,” Ele said. “She was telling me how she would have loved to stay here. If she had come with me (on the recruiting visit), she probably would have said yes. She’s doing great now, but it would be so great to have her with me.”
For Ele, now 20, being on her own has been a double-edged sword. “Of course, I always miss her — she’s my favorite person,” Villa said. “At the same time, I feel like this experience is helping me to grow up. I got the opportunity to play and be myself.”
No longer routinely identified as one of the twins, Ele has had the chance to blossom on her own. Ethridge would be more than happy to be coaching both sisters but says having Ele on the team has been a positive in every respect.
“She’s been phenomenal, not just on the court,” Ethridge said. “She’s a special talent on the court but she also is maybe the happiest human being you’ll ever be around. Everybody loves her, she doesn’t have a bad thing to say about anything in her life.
"She’s a little bit of a chilled personality but, man, she’s a dog and obviously very competitive and wants to win at all costs.”
At home in Italy, Mati was the point guard and Ele played the other backcourt position. With the Cougars, Ele is learning to operate at both spots. “It’s been good for Ele to get away from her sister and have to play the point guard a little bit,” Ethridge said.
“I can expand my (game) because I get to know how to do both things,” said Villa, adding that Astera Tuhina, a junior from Kosovo, has been a big help learning the position. “She is the real point guard of our team. She is really good. It’s going to be good for my future.”
It’s been good for the Cougars’ present. WSU is a young team, anchored by senior guard Tara Wallack, a Canadian who averages 12.8 points and a team-leading 7.2 rebounds, and joined Villa on the preseason All-WCC team.
Wallack is the team's only senior and Tuhina (7.3 points, 4.0 assists) is the only junior in the primary eight-player rotation that also includes three freshmen and three sophomores.
That youthful roster experienced some unsurprising growing pains early this season, especially given a challenging non-conference schedule that includes road games against Stanford, Texas Tech, Iowa and Oregon. The Cougars were just 4-6 at one point, and Ethridge was hoping the experience would pay dividends.
“As you’re going through it, you’re taking hits . . . not being able to finish games, not being able to be consistent enough in a 40-minute game to sustain what it takes,” she said. “Two months into the season you realize you had seven new players coming in and they weren’t ready yet.
“That was the purpose of playing that schedule. Now, looking back, the schedule was pretty brutal for young players. I’m glad for it, I’m not afraid of it. I think it’s made us a little bit tougher. You get some benefit out of it.”
Villa agrees. “Actually, it was a good thing for us to have such a hard schedule in the beginning. (It showed us) to face the teams we’re going to play against in March Madness,” she said in an expression of confidence about where this season might take the Cougars.
WSU is now 12-8, including 7-2 in the WCC after double-digit road victories against San Francisco and Santa Clara last week. A week earlier, despite 24 points from Villa, the Cougars lost 69-61 to Gonzaga in a game they trailed by just two points after three quarters.
The rematch is Feb. 8 at Spokane. “The next time we play against them, it could be a very different game,” Villa said. “The fact that we now know them is going to make it easier. Of course, they are a very good team. It’s going to be a great challenge for us.”
She expects the same on Thursday when the Cougars play host to Portland (17-3, 6-3), which began the season with 14 straight victories.
Ethridge feels good about her team’s prospects going forward because her young roster is continuing to improve. Alex Covill, a 6-foot-6 sophomore center from Missoula, Montana, has scored double digits seven of the past eight games and has nine outings with three or more blocked shots. Freshman frontcourt players Dayana Mendes of France and Candace Kpetikou of Niger combined for 33 points and 20 rebounds off the bench in the two wins last week.
“Learning the urgency of the details of the game takes time and you’ve got to do it wrong a lot of times before you start doing it right,” Ethridge said. “It’s not in the big things — it’s so much in the weeds and the details.
“We’ve got eight weeks left in the season and we have a ceiling that is higher than most because of the youth of our team. Every single day we’re learning new things and light bulbs are coming on with these young players.”