Ernie Kent: students reaction

[CrimsonDisciple]

Let me be the first to say that I wasn't jumping for joy with the hire. My son is a Freshman who lives on campus. He is stating that the student body is "pumped" for Ernie Kent. We must get the students excited, for that alone, this was the right hire. It sounds like Ernie is surrounding himself with the right team..... I can't wait to see what these guys can do 'next' year!!! Go Cougs!!!

 

[CrimsonDisciple]

Students are currently at a pep rally waiting for Ernie!

All us old farts should be warming up.

 

[avabob]

The only negative comments I have heard from any source come from a handful of message board posters. Getting the kids back involved is worth 2-3 more wins per year even if nothing else improves.

 

[bogusto]

Ava: lest you forget, you recently were wholeheartedly defending the Bone regime against any and all dissenters. How you can so blasely transform into a Kent supporter defies credulity. Somewhere, somehow, you need to learn detachment and nuance, putting aside unrestrained ebullience until it is demonstrably indicated.
This post was edited on 4/3 8:22 AM by bogusto

 

[YakiCoug]

Originally posted by bogusto:
Ava: lest you forget, you recently were wholeheartedly defending the Bone regime against any and all dissenters. How you can so blasely transform into a Kent supporter defies credulity. Somewhere, somehow, you need to learn detachment and nuance, putting aside unrestrained ebullience until it is demonstrably evident.

Ava is already scouting the produce sections at Dissmores and Safeway for Kent sightings.

 

[Brent H.]

Originally posted by bogusto:
Ava: lest you forget, you recently were wholeheartedly defending the Bone regime against any and all dissenters. How you can so blasely transform into a Kent supporter defies credulity. Somewhere, somehow, you need to learn detachment and nuance, putting aside unrestrained ebullience until it is demonstrably evident.

Did we attend the same school?

 

[mikalalas]

Ava: lest you forget, you recently were wholeheartedly defending the Bone regime against any and all dissenters.? How you can so blasely transform into a Kent?supporter?defies credulity.? Somewhere, somehow, you need to learn detachment and nuance, putting aside?unrestrained ebullience until it is demonstrably evident.??


You also thought Bone was good,ok the first 2,3 years. After his first bad year 1,2 years ago, it was apparent Bone was a bad coach, and after the last horrible season, Ava also thought that Bone was bad, deserved to be fired. In the early Bone years, there were logical, reasonable, factual reasons to defend Bone. Later on there was logical, reasonable, factual reasons to Fire Bone.


Same now goes for Kent. There are logical, reasonable, factual reasons, that show, prove, that Kent SHOULD,WILL PROBABLY be a good coach for WSU, unless strange, bizarre happens to cause him to fail at WSU. Also if Kent cant get it done at WSU, then Tony's 2 awesome years, and Bone's good,almost great 2nd year, Kelvin Sampson's good years, are, were lighting in a bottle years, and that WSU cant even semi consistently have good winning years, no matter who the coach is.


Ava is just looking at the logic, reason, facts,that show why Kent is a good,great coach, and see's that Kent is a good, great coach.

As for me I thought that Kent would be a just ok coach, and there were 5 to 10 coaches, I wanted as WSU's coach more then Kent.

But now after looking at all the logic, reason, facts,etc, of other posters, on, about Kent, I can logically see that Kent should, will probably be,is a good,great coach for WSU.

Instead of being dogmatically, broken recordly, brick wall like, against Kent, how about you look at all the logic, reason, facts, proofs, etc, and be able to see, be convinced, persuaded, by the logic, reason, facts, proofs, etc, that Kent is a good,great coach.

And even if you cant see that, at least understand why other people see that.

 

[ElComanche]

Ava and i have been on opposite sides of the fence for a long time now. However we do seem to see eye to eye on the Kent hiring..Heck i would even buy him a beer if i ever met him in Pullman.His reasons for supporting Kent seem to be logical and well reasoned. His analysis of the current players is also spot on in my opinion and he has not gone overboard in any case. Perhaps he has seen the "light" despite his advanced age

 

[wulffbone]

Re: Students are currently at a pep rally waiting for Ernie!

Hey, I resemble that comment!

LOL

 

[avabob]

You guys do remember that I always said I was a WSU hoops fan, not a Ken Bone fan? I defended Bone because I thought support for him and the program was the best way for us to be successful. I still believe Bone is a good coach who turned out to be a bad fit at WSU for a variety of reasons. I also so things going south this season that I did not see happen in prior years. That is why I recognized that he had to go. I only met Bone a couple of times, and never had more than a two sentence conversation with him.

I was not high on Ernie when his name first started floating around. However if you look at his career on paper it is hard to argue that there were any other candidates with close to the qualifications of Ernie. The only detractors I really hear are the guys who think he cant get enough talent to Pullman to play a more exciting up tempo brand of basketball.

It is hard to get a quantity of talent to Pullman. The mistake some people make is thinking that there is some system you can implement that will win without high D-1 talent at this level. Tony Bennett is a great coach. However he won in Pullman because of the under appreciated under the radar talent as much as the Bennett ball system. Look at the talent he has at VU. Those guys could play more up tempo and win if that was what he wanted to do. They are skilled talented athletes.

For you guys who don't want to see up tempo in Pullman, and want to watch a bunch of short slow guys win by getting floor burns, go watch a well coached D-2 team, where the talent level is low enough that you can make that work. The limitations to winning in Pullman are real. The right system isn't going to change that. The Bennetts were both great coaches, and they only managed 2 years over 500 in conference out of 6. Not sure Ernie will do any better, but he can do as well, and do it with a brand of basketball that will get the students back involved again.

 

[PhDCoug]

If Pullman is so horrible and isolated how did anyone win any games at all there? If Seattle is so desirable, why is their team not winning championships every year? When you look at the Washington schools record in Pauley against UCLA, it is very similar. How could this be if Seattle is such a wonderful place to be?

 

[ElComanche]

I wish that kent would give a couple of "bigs" their walking papers to free up a couple of scholarships.As it stands right now there is only one availaible.The big man situation shows the stiff Railey,The juco Morgan and perhaps Canty from the football team. The rest of the bigs are players who charitably can be called projects The team needs another 6'8-6'9 big man who can run the floor,rebound and play defense.. There is also a need for a juco PG These project guys will never play and should transfer. The team can become competitive fast.That would wake up the student body.

 

[YakiCoug]

Originally posted by ElComanche:
I wish that kent would give a couple of "bigs" their walking papers to free up a couple of scholarships.As it stands right now there is only one availaible.The big man situation shows the stiff Railey,The juco Morgan and perhaps Canty from the football team. The rest of the bigs are players who charitably can be called projects The team needs another 6'8-6'9 big man who can run the floor,rebound and play defense.. There is also a need for a juco PG These project guys will never play and should transfer. The team can become competitive fast.That would wake up the student body.

I would not be surprised if two to five players slated to return next season will not be around.

 

[CrimsonWazzu]

Originally posted by YakiCoug:

Originally posted by ElComanche:
I wish that kent would give a couple of "bigs" their walking papers to free up a couple of scholarships.As it stands right now there is only one availaible.The big man situation shows the stiff Railey,The juco Morgan and perhaps Canty from the football team. The rest of the bigs are players who charitably can be called projects The team needs another 6'8-6'9 big man who can run the floor,rebound and play defense.. There is also a need for a juco PG These project guys will never play and should transfer. The team can become competitive fast.That would wake up the student body.

I would not be surprised if two to five players slated to return next season will not be around.

I would. Lacy, Woolridge, DKD, Railey all will be here next year as seniors either starting or playing heavy minutes. Maybe Hunter is asked to move on, maybe a guy like Boese is asked to consider moving on as well, then again maybe Kent is good enough to find a way to get these guys to contribute and stick with us while we have an experienced group, and not disrupt the chemistry.

i would be totally shocked if any of the young guys left. Kent is a guy you want to play for if you're a guard especially.

 

[YakiCoug]

Originally posted by CrimsonWazzu:

Originally posted by YakiCoug:

Originally posted by ElComanche:
I wish that kent would give a couple of "bigs" their walking papers to free up a couple of scholarships.As it stands right now there is only one availaible.The big man situation shows the stiff Railey,The juco Morgan and perhaps Canty from the football team. The rest of the bigs are players who charitably can be called projects The team needs another 6'8-6'9 big man who can run the floor,rebound and play defense.. There is also a need for a juco PG These project guys will never play and should transfer. The team can become competitive fast.That would wake up the student body.

I would not be surprised if two to five players slated to return next season will not be around.

I would. Lacy, Woolridge, DKD, Railey all will be here next year as seniors either starting or playing heavy minutes. Maybe Hunter is asked to move on, maybe a guy like Boese is asked to consider moving on as well, then again maybe Kent is good enough to find a way to get these guys to contribute and stick with us while we have an experienced group, and not disrupt the chemistry.

i would be totally shocked if any of the young guys left. Kent is a guy you want to play for if you're a guard especially.

In the best of all worlds, it would be great if Kent somehow coached them all to play at a higher level, but based on what I've seen from at least two of them, this is very unlikely to occur. I hope I'm wrong, because it was great seeing their expressions when introduced to Kent and visiting with him.

 

[ElComanche]

I do not have anything against these kids,they are not good ball players right now. The local kid,Hankinson,seems to be somewhat protected by posters here. If he can vastly improve,let him stay. But he will soon be buried on the depth chart and might enjoy playing on a D11 or D111 team. The program needs a fresh injection of enthusiasm and more athletic players

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

"The Bennetts were both great coaches, and they only managed 2 years over 500 in conference out of 6."

Wait...we are now focusing on the conference record only?

 

[avabob]

I don't think anyone can coach Hunter up enough to contribute other than as a big body in practice. Hawkinson, different matter. He is not a great athlete, but he is very skilled, and very smart. I always thought he might not be a real contributor till he was a junior. Even Bones original plan was to red shirt him. Boese, has some offensive skills. It will be interesting to see whether he finds a place in Ernies system. I wouldn't bet either way, but admit I always like to see the local kids come through.

 

[YakiCoug]

Originally posted by avabob:

I don't think anyone can coach Hunter up enough to contribute other than as a big body in practice. Hawkinson, different matter. He is not a great athlete, but he is very skilled, and very smart. I always thought he might not be a real contributor till he was a junior. Even Bones original plan was to red shirt him. Boese, has some offensive skills. It will be interesting to see whether he finds a place in Ernies system. I wouldn't bet either way, but admit I always like to see the local kids come through.
Nearly everyone has this sentiment, but when you look at the athleticism of teams in the tournament, so many guys on our roster fall far short of what it takes to attain such success. With five seniors, however, and with the early signing period, it shouldn't take Kent long to upgrade the talent in this program.

 

[chinookpirate]

Originally posted by YakiCoug:

Originally posted by avabob:

I don't think anyone can coach Hunter up enough to contribute other than as a big body in practice. Hawkinson, different matter. He is not a great athlete, but he is very skilled, and very smart. I always thought he might not be a real contributor till he was a junior. Even Bones original plan was to red shirt him. Boese, has some offensive skills. It will be interesting to see whether he finds a place in Ernies system. I wouldn't bet either way, but admit I always like to see the local kids come through.


Nearly everyone has this sentiment, but when you look at the athleticism of teams in the tournament, so many guys on our roster fall far short of what it takes to attain such success. With five seniors, however, and with the early signing period, it shouldn't take Kent long to upgrade the talent in this program.

Kent likes the players on THIS roster... says they just need to play with greater consistency to be successful.

So, I guess it's Ernie vs. Yaki... who is right? We're going to find out.

 

[avabob]

I don't think Ernie is going to say anything negative about this roster, for the simple reason he doesn't really have any good options to turn it over and run guys at this late date. He said just what I would say about a group that has totally lost confidence. I know he will want to upgrade the athleticism and find more shooters in his first big class.

 

[ElComanche]

Ernie is ,of course,going to say he likes this team. He has time to do some recruiting and there are several excellent players yet unsigned..He needs to put on a positive front for both recruiting purposes and trying to make sense out of a total mess. CP is fooling himself if he really thinks that Ernie would not like to recruit some quality ballplayers.It is nonsense to think that this squad's players match up with other PAC 12 teams' rosters.IF he has 2 scholarships he needs to recruit a swing forward -6'6 ,a quality big man and hope the frosh pg can mature quickly. If he had three scholarships available i would add a juco PG to the mix for depth at that position. I would guess that all recruits will start or play big minutes because of the paucity of D1 talent on the team.Some posters are delusional enough to think that Bone did a good job of recruiting

 

[chinookpirate]

where did I post Ernie Kent would not like to recruit some quality players?

which posters (any?) believe Bone recruited well enough to keep his job?

Originally posted by ElComanche:
Ernie is ,of course,going to say he likes this team. He has time to do some recruiting and there are several excellent players yet unsigned..He needs to put on a positive front for both recruiting purposes and trying to make sense out of a total mess. CP is fooling himself if he really thinks that Ernie would not like to recruit some quality ballplayers.It is nonsense to think that this squad's players match up with other PAC 12 teams' rosters.IF he has 2 scholarships he needs to recruit a swing forward -6'6 ,a quality big man and hope the frosh pg can mature quickly. If he had three scholarships available i would add a juco PG to the mix for depth at that position. I would guess that all recruits will start or play big minutes because of the paucity of D1 talent on the team.Some posters are delusional enough to think that Bone did a good job of recruiting

 

[ElComanche]

Jeez you want verbatim? There was a small segment of posters here who wanted Bone maintained for at least another year. and kept aregueing until the bitter end. I called for his immediate flushing for the last two years and there was a lot of opposition here.You guys kept saying where was the money going to come from? Who would be availiable to who would that salary? who was basically worth a damn, who would take the job and do better than Bone? i remember when i stated after last year,that the loss of Bone's best player who was double teamed that the remaining players would result in a dismal record the following year. That was met with a host of people who said that i was wrong. Another time when i said that the preseason record was a farce due the weak schedule and the cougs would get their asses handed to them when the confernce season started. This was met by a steady scream of indignation and criticism. You guys need to go and review your past posts i do not care to spend the time researching all the posts written in the positive behalf of your departed coach.The search for a new coach was met on this board by support for buzz cut coaches who would play ugly ball. It was funny to watch as some postesr here think that this is the only kind of basketball which will win in Pullman. I,for one,want to move on to Kent's program and leave the past years in the dust which and Pullman's version of basketball purgatory. You guys were wrong an many counts so owe up to it and move on gentlemen.

 

[chinookpirate]

everybody wants to move on to Ernie Kent ball at WSU.

what makes you so special?

 

[Coug1990]

Originally posted by avabob:

I don't think Ernie is going to say anything negative about this roster, for the simple reason he doesn't really have any good options to turn it over and run guys at this late date. He said just what I would say about a group that has totally lost confidence. I know he will want to upgrade the athleticism and find more shooters in his first big class.

The dumbest thing to do is run down the players that you inherit. No matter how talented the players are, you need them working with you in the same direction. We saw with the previous football coach the results of insulting the team and then wondering why they are not running through a brick wall for you.

Ernie is smart. He knows how to lead. He is saying the right things to the team to get them on board.

 

[How_did_this_happen?]

Originally posted by ElComanche:
Jeez you want verbatim? There was a small segment of posters here who wanted Bone maintained for at least another year. and kept aregueing until the bitter end. I called for his immediate flushing for the last two years and there was a lot of opposition here.You guys kept saying where was the money going to come from? Who would be availiable to who would that salary? who was basically worth a damn, who would take the job and do better than Bone? i remember when i stated after last year,that the loss of Bone's best player who was double teamed that the remaining players would result in a dismal record the following year. That was met with a host of people who said that i was wrong. Another time when i said that the preseason record was a farce due the weak schedule and the cougs would get their asses handed to them when the confernce season started. This was met by a steady scream of indignation and criticism. You guys need to go and review your past posts i do not care to spend the time researching all the posts written in the positive behalf of your departed coach.The search for a new coach was met on this board by support for buzz cut coaches who would play ugly ball. It was funny to watch as some postesr here think that this is the only kind of basketball which will win in Pullman. I,for one,want to move on to Kent's program and leave the past years in the dust which and Pullman's version of basketball purgatory. You guys were wrong an many counts so owe up to it and move on gentlemen.

Well...I thought Bone was a bad hire from the beginning. One just had to look at how his teams performed at a deeper level to see he was not likely to succeed at WSU. Plus, the fact that he is not a compelling personality did not help at all.

I also predicted, if I recall correctly, that we might win three conference games this season.

Many times we can get our crimson colored glasses on and lose our ability to be objective.

I preferred a younger hire than Kent. However, he appears to be recharged...and he can certainly recruit, so I hope that the earlier version of Kent at Oregon is the guy who is our coach than the late version.

I'm behind the hire...despite some reservations. Let's hope he can get us back to some respectability and some toughness.

 

[wazzubruce]

Ahhh NO !! Don't really care for it. I like the current format where I can see all the current articles at once. Looks like it's to force more advertising on us. ugh !