New Washington State men's basketball head coach Ernie Kent met with the media today to discuss the team's offseason, the upcoming exhibition game against Azusa Pacific and what his team needs to do in order to be ready for the season opener next Friday at UTEP.

-Kent said that DaVonte Lacy and Dexter Kernich-Drew are the only penciled in starters at this time and over the next few days he'll begin to figure out his starting five. Que Johnson sounds like he'll be the next one in line for a starter spot, though he wants to see more consistency for the remaining spots.

-Speaking of Kernich-Drew, Kent spoke at length about the senior, saying he worked as hard as anyone this offseason, added 20-pounds to his frame and seven inches to his vertical. Kent credited new strength and conditioning coach Scott Thom, formerly of California under Mike Montgomery, though he also noted that the team's new mentality, or confidence, as he put it, helped a lot of guys improve over the offseason.

-Of the newcomers, Kent is still looking for consistency, though when he talked about who has improved the most, he name-dropped Trevor Dunbar, Jackie Davis, Ny Redding and Aaron Cheatum as guys who have improved the most since coming into the program earlier this year.

-Kent also said that Jordan Railey has improved in the post in recent weeks and he's going to be counting on him to continue that "once people are in the stands."

-Kent talked at length about how his team will progress throughout the season and how important it is to be trending upwards at the end of the year. He says the first two road games are very important for them to find some kind of success in tough environments.

-As for the exhibition game this Friday against Azusa Pacific, the goal will be for the team to play with poise, take care of the basketball and make sure that they can get a lot of guys minutes so they can continue their evaluation heading into UTEP and TCU. Finding a cohesive unit will be paramount in their evaluations.

Link: https://washingtonstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1700424

Coach Kent says Dexter Drew is the most improved guard and he is 20 pounds heavier! That sound like very good news to me!

Three-star defensive end UteZone.com that Washington State will be one of the schools he officially visits prior to making a college decision. The No. 27 weakside defensive end in the country will also visit Utah and Cal and would arrive at the schools of his choice after taking a LDS mission.

Link: https://washingtonstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1700329

According to the Washington State football Twitter account, Washington State has landed former Clemson receiver Kyrin Priester who officially visited last weekend. I'm still working to confirm with Priester, however that's about as official as it gets.

Because WSU has already announced it, that would indicate that he has signed a financial aid agreement. We'll have more as soon as we can gather the information.

The Bennetts were terrible coaches at WSU. Amazing.

Willie Sykes picked up an offer from Washington State this evening. The 5-foot-11, 183-pound cornerback is rated two-stars by Rivals and also holds offers from Fresno State, Minnesota, Oregon State, Purdue, Utah and others.

Sykes has officially visited Minnesota and has an official visit set up to Purdue this weekend. Sykes is also heavily interested in Oregon State, who the Cougars take on this weekend.

Highlights: http://www.hudl.com/athlete/1417380/highlights/145528375

While Washington State was expected to have two official visitors in town this weekend, it appears just Kyrin Priester, the former Clemson receiver, was the only one to make it this weekend as Je'Vari Anderson informed WazzuWatch.com today that he rescheduled his visit for the Apple Cup.

The Concord (Calif.) De La Salle cornerback says it was a "scheduling thing" when asked why he was unable to make the trip. I'm working on getting ahold of Priester to see how his visit went, though he appeared to be enjoying himself based on his comments on Twitter.

Linebacker Jeremiah Allison and Joe Dahl met with the media today to discuss Connor Halliday's injury and gave a raving review of new starter Luke Falk. You can find those transcripts with video at the link below.

Link: https://washingtonstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1700106

Mike Leach provided updates on Connor Halliday's injury, discussed Luke Falk's performance, previewed Oregon State and sent a message to his team moving forward.

Link: https://washingtonstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1700064 (w/ video)

Davis Perrott. The 6-foot-5, 270-pound offensive lineman is rated three-stars by Rivals and also holds offers from Boise State, California, Colorado State, Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State, South Dakota State, UNLV and Wyoming.

Perrott visited California a couple weeks ago and told GoldenBearReport.com that a decision is likely to come soon, though he still wants to take at least one more visit - possibly to Indiana - before a decision is made. Boise State is also under consideration.

Who stays who goes? If any

Yost, Simmons, Maestro, and Simmons are safe IMO

Breske should be gone, I don't think he's that good of a recruiter, maybe Britton can add more depth on that. I have not seen the development in our secondary that I would like. Why can't David Bucannon see the field? How can a RS sophomore not get a look with how bad this secondary is? Why haven't we seen Taliulu get any better? He's been playing almost 36 games now. Couldn't he at least turned Tracy Clark into a serviceable DB in 3 years? Don't like the scheme, 3-4 is not gonna work here. Look at South Carolina, they just inputted the 3-4 this year and are getting their ass handed to them and they have 100x's the athletes that we have. Go to the 4-3, I think we have the DT's for it. I think we can find some tweeners to play DE for us, in California and Texas.

Clay McGuire, have we seen enough to make a judgement off him? Maybe Leach can go get Matt Moore his old OL coach at Tech who's at La Tech right now. Maybe McGuire just needs to wait for these guys to grow up a little, still a lot of young guys on that OL.

Volero and Wilson who are linebackers. Now I get confused with the 3-4 who coaches what, so I don't know who coaches what, but I just don't see the bodies here to make a good judgement. When we are playing Peterson and Pritchard tells us where we are at.

The defense is sitting on a lot of redshirts, Dotson, LaRue, Lenui, Farrar, Pippins, Fernandez, Mata'afa, Tapa, Hoyd and players like Griffin, Porter, Hameed, Luvu, and Hanser are playing as true freshman, we have Aaron Porter coming next year. The depth does look a lot better it's gonna be green. We are more athletic and faster in the secondary, but our linebackers are just aren't good.

I think the roster is started to become even, the attrition from 2010-2012 is just too much to overcome right now. But I just don't see Breske turning the corner here, his defenses at Montana were average, but created a lot of turnovers. This defense has like 7 total this year, 2 picks.

Blackwell commits to Long Beach State and Thybulle commits to UW

Gets a 70 million dollar extension. Good for him

than ours?

Mike Leach was on the US Bank Cougar Coaches Show with Bud Nameck tonight. Here's a few of the things he talked about...

-Leach says Senator Baumgartner was at practice tonight and that he's a regular visitor. When asked if the Senator ever recommends plays to run, Leach said he doesn't but that he's a bright guy that he'd listen to, but wouldn't necessarily run those plays.

-The conversation shifted to whether Leach ever runs into people on the street who recommend plays to run and he said yes, he does, though he also gets letters from people in prison recommending what plays to run. Leach said there's people that tell him that they get out of prison in six months or and that they were a running back or an offensive lineman, asking for a tryout. He says he also hears from people in the military saying similar things.

-Leach says that he feels they have a good game plan against USC. Notes that they'll have to be physical in the front seven and says that they'll have some guys back in the secondary that should help out on the play action.

"Welcome to the club," Leach said of USC's young offensive line. "It's kind of tough to out-young us at any position, so good for them. Now they know how I feel."

-Leach on the team feeling like they need to win-out to make a bowl game says that they'll just focus on USC and then focus on the next guy.

-Leach says that the bye week following the Oregon State game will be similar to the previous bye week but it will depend on what kind of shape they're in.

-Leach liked Frankenstein as a kid when it came to picking Halloween outfits. He says he used to do a lot of research because it was much more difficult back in the day with limited materials. While he doesn't dress up any longer, he stressed that if he were to dress up, it would have to be something quick and mobile. He says mobility is crucial because as a kid, he would double-back to the houses that gave out the big candy bars.

Then he talked about a frat party at Kansas State when the team was there while at Texas Tech, where a kid dressed up as Bill Snyder. He said the only thing missing was Snyder's white Nike Cortez sneakers with the purple swoosh. Leach said there's a myth that only Snyder has access to them because he always is wearing them but no one else can find them.

-Leach says USC's defense is a fairly basic group. They know they're talented and a lot of it is "we're big, strong and fast" so try to move it on us. He says he'll look at USC's film this year but also look at a lot of what they did at UW last season.

-Leach said, when scouts come to talk about his players, they ask about whether they play special teams, how hard they work, how they do in the film room and how quickly they come back from injuries. Leach on Halliday says, "I can't think of a better quarterback in the country than him."

I say that as the hire was supposed to be to re-engage the fans into the program. Sorta like Leach.

The sale for me was Kent was a great recruiter at Oregon. He got some regarded kids to play for him.

Like any coach you have to give him time to build this thing.

Stating the obvious, a near last place predicted finish w/ not much early recruiting fanfare, aren't going to get the average fans excited.

Link: https://washingtonstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1699107

My preview for USC: https://usc.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1699099

Washington State will be hosting two prospects this weekend for the Cougars' home contest against USC. As reported earlier this week, former Clemson wide receiver Kyrin Priester will be in town as will Concord (Calif.) De La Salle defensive back Ja'Vari Anderson.

Anderson, a three-star athlete who expects to play cornerback at the next level, also holds offers from California, Utah and Oregon State. Anderson says this will be his first official visit. The 6-foot-0, 192-pounder was teammates with Washington State cornerback Kevin Griffin at De La Salle last season.

We'll have more from both prospects following their visits.

Chino Hills (Calif.) Ayala safety Philip Afia has committed to Utah. The three-star officially visited Washington State last weekend. This would probably explain why he was unavailable for interview requests following his visit.

Link: http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Philip-Afia-162872

I spoke with Berkeley (Calif.) St. Mary's safety Ron Smith today and he tells me that he'll no longer be visiting Washington State this weekend. According to Smith, the staff moved his visit to after the season because the game time for USC was moved up so early and therefore regular visit plans get kind of skewed.

As of now, it doesn't look like there will be any high school prospects on campus when the Cougars take on USC with former Clemson receiver Kyrin Priester the only confirmed visitor at this time. I'll check with some JUCO sources to see if there are any visitors from the junior college ranks.

I know you can't control what people post or what they don't on here, but if people want to derail threads and get into pissing matches with people then I suggest you kick them to the curb. I'm done with CougEd, this dude can't just talk about what is going on with WSU. He has to defend the loser 9-40 to just be an ass and I'm done with it. He can take that crap to Brand X if he wants to, but I'm about talking about current WSU, not the worst coach in NCAA history.

And I know he has a premium subscription and can read this, DA FUQ IS YOUR DEAL DUDE?!

According to his Twitter account, Kyrin Priester, a former Clemson receiver, will visit Washington State this weekend when the Cougars take on USC.

The Snellville (Ga.) Brookwood product was originally a three-star prospect in the 2013 class and held offers from Georgia, N.C. State, Ohio State, South Carolina, TCU and Vanderbilt. Prior to committing to Clemson, Priester was a N.C. State commit. He was unable to qualify out of high school, electing to go to prep school for a year before enrolling at Clemson over the summer.

As WazzuWatch.com reported back in September, Priester, after being dismissed from the Clemson program for what head coach Dabo Swinney called a "bad attitude," was in contact with Washington State assistants Dennis Simmons and J.J. Jackson almost immediately.

Priester played in one game for the Tigers this season prior to his dismissal. We'll have more from the talented wideout as we gather more information.

Highlights: Kyrin Priester Rivals Spotlight

Moultrie (Ga.) Colquitt County all-purpose running back Sihiem King picked up an offer from Washington State tonight, according to his Twitter account. The 5-foot-8, 175-pound athlete is rated two-stars by Rivals and also holds offers from Cincinnati, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech, Marshall, Middle Tennessee State, Old Dominion, South Alabama, Southern Miss and Troy.

Rivals Southeast analyst Woody Womack has positive things to say about King prior to his senior season, most notably his elusiveness, toughness and excellent speed.

This offer doesn't come as a huge surprise, as King is an excellent playmaker through the air, as well, and it comes on the heels of Dominic Davis' flip to USC. King and Davis share similar qualities on the field. I'll be in touch with King soon to see if he plans on visiting.

who supported Wulff are in a frenzy now on the free board. It's a sight to behold!

was a result of injuries and not desperation? Is that the unconfirmed rumor/insinuation?