Flynn just tweeted that he's transferring

[Glad Cougar]

I am an old dude and i have followed coug basketball for decades. I was against the hiring of Bennett having watched his son play for his team and his style of basketball. it was ugly ball then and it seemed that only his son had license to shoot on that team. I could not believe they were hiring him at that point.So yes i was familiar with his teams and style of basketball I assume that you probably never saw his son play for dad ?

I could not believe WSU was hiring Dick Bennett either. Why would a guy who coached Wisconsin into the Final Four take over a program nearly destroyed by Paul Graham? Hey, it's okay that you don't like the Bennetts or the type of basketball they played....but there is no dispute that WSU basketball had the two best back-to-back years of its history under Bennett Ball.

Glad Cougar

ps....Sounds like you didn't support the Bennetts from the start because you didn't like their style or them. So you'll understand if some WSU fans felt the same way about Ernie Kent.

 

[Cougsocal]

It's very simple. Bill Moos' ego is so large he was bound and determined to hamstring any successor to look as sh*tty as possible.

This isn't even debatable. There was absolutely NO reason to give Ernie Kent the kind of rollover/extension he was granted by Moos. Shameful.

I sincerely believe that Bill thought he was acting in our best interest. The first couple years, things were looking up with Ernie, had that continued, we would have been praising his decisions right now. But an AD's job is to be way ahead of the game, a chess master. Part of that is preparing in well advance for the "what if," like what if Ernie or Mike implode or leave? What if revenues fall well short of projections Three very possible situations. Bill just didn't have any back up plans. That just not being very good at your job.

Anyhow, it is a much better to have people who don't own the "shite sandwich" try to fix it, than the guys that do, they don't have to make excuses or continue to pretend that it is really chocolate. Who really would want the dynanic duo of mismanagement were still at the helm?

 

[ElComanche]

I understand the frustration on the fans part. I would love to see the cougs winning again.no matter who the coach is

 

[SaveFerris]

Yes i watched almost all of their games.

I'll be moving on now.

Yes i watched almost all of their games. His team at Wisconsin Green Bay played basketball the same way and that is where Tony learned the defense. Even as a grad student,i had seasons tickets to the games Sure some coaches loved DB but i hated his teams and his style of ball.To each his own and i hated his hire. Tony loosened thing up a lot with his teams but i still loved it when a tiny little bitty college ran the ball and his team could not keep pace. I loved it for many reasons. Very satisfying loss indeed

I watched the OK State game at a bar in Lakewood. I might have felt differently in person but watching I thought I saw a bit of anger in the players all while they were still trying to execute to the bitter end. Ok State was simply too big too athletic and much more developed than we were at the time. Maybe I just saw what I wanted to see but as the game sunk in especially in the second half I came away thinking (maybe hoping) it was just another step toward becoming competitive.

The bartender was actually from Wisconsin, happened to actually have played for one of the Bennett's and knew the family. Talked with her at length when see saw me watching the game and realized it was "Coach Bennett and Tony" on the bench. No question it was a complete debacle but I was waiting to see is how they would respond after the debacle. That's why when someone brings up 81-29 I remind them of 54-52 with a chance to win on the final possession against Gonzaga 3 days later.

 

[Glad Cougar]

I understand the frustration on the fans part. I would love to see the cougs winning again.no matter who the coach is

That's a good and reasonable response, ElC. We should all feel that way.

Glad Cougar

 

[Loyal Coug]

Some people yearn for a return to 1993 and think that is basketball. It is the mentality i was talking about, i hated Dick Bennett s style of coaching and in retrospect the cougs may have been better in hiring another coach. His son left the cougs in a lurch when he abruptly left and i have no fond memorizes of the Bennetts That is heresy to his fans

This is a really stupid post. Shouldn't have hired them? No fond memories? Well you are outnumbered about 200,000 to 5

 

[ElComanche]

. Your lack of insight and comprehension is beyond logic

 

[avabob1]

In retrospect hiring Dick was the best hire in WSU hoops history. The problem was the unrealistic expectations of the fan base that were created by those 26 win seasons. Nobody, including Tony had he stayed, was going to live up to those expectations. I was just as guilty as anyone else after our sweet 16 season, combined with the 6 man class Tony had coming in. I ignored some clear warning signs in Tony's last season. Defense wasn't quite as able to lock down teams without Cowgill and Weaver. Even more noticeable was our inability to get good shots, often flirting with shot clock violations. With Weaver gone we had nobody who could create late in the clock.

We can argue forever how much better Tony would have done than Bone had Tony stayed. One thing I know for sure. A lot of the unwatchable things posters continually wrote about in condemning Bone were just as present in Bennett ball, and became noticeable when we dropped from a Sweet 16 team to a .500 team.

 

[Glad Cougar]

In retrospect hiring Dick was the best hire in WSU hoops history. The problem was the unrealistic expectations of the fan base that were created by those 26 win seasons. Nobody, including Tony had he stayed, was going to live up to those expectations. I was just as guilty as anyone else after our sweet 16 season, combined with the 6 man class Tony had coming in. I ignored some clear warning signs in Tony's last season. Defense wasn't quite as able to lock down teams without Cowgill and Weaver. Even more noticeable was our inability to get good shots, often flirting with shot clock violations. With Weaver gone we had nobody who could create late in the clock.

We can argue forever how much better Tony would have done than Bone had Tony stayed. One thing I know for sure. A lot of the unwatchable things posters continually wrote about in condemning Bone were just as present in Bennett ball, and became noticeable when we dropped from a Sweet 16 team to a .500 team.

It's interesting that you refer to that 3rd season as a ".500 team" (technically, they finished with a winning record overall). You could have just as easily referred to it as an NIT team. I agree that the team that year fell short of my expectations but the NIT was the high watermark for Bone. I think a lot of us would be happy these days to make the NIT.

One other point on that last season for Tony, the conference was extremely tough with 6 teams in the NCAA tournament I believe and WSU had at least 3 wins vs. Top 20 teams. A little context helps when these arguments come up.

Glad Cougar

 

[avabob1]

My point was there was a big enough drop off from 26 wins to 17 wins. Agree that today we would love to even flirt with the NIT. Such is the case with expectations. They were certainly much higher when Bone took over, and I think even Tony would have had a hard time living up to them. The 2010 team wasn't going to be as good as the 2009 team with the loss of Baynes and Rochestie, replaced by 2 true freshmen, one of whom should have red shirted.

 

[ElComanche]

The end result is why coug basketball is where it is today.The program needs to improve and stabilize at least for a period of 3-4 years..

 

[SaveFerris]

My point was there was a big enough drop off from 26 wins to 17 wins. Agree that today we would love to even flirt with the NIT. Such is the case with expectations. They were certainly much higher when Bone took over, and I think even Tony would have had a hard time living up to them. The 2010 team wasn't going to be as good as the 2009 team with the loss of Baynes and Rochestie, replaced by 2 true freshmen, one of whom should have red shirted.

I never got the sense most expected the same results from Bone. It was what people saw as a drastic change in approach around fundamentals, lack of defense, and off court issues that were concerning.

Still, expectations were high in Bone's second year with Thompson a junior. OOC didn't do much to curtail the expectations until late. Close loss to K-State, blowout win against Gonzaga (probably over valued) and Miss. State (can't remember how good they were but a name). However we ended OOC with a blowout loss to Butler followed by 2 losses to start conference to UCLA and USC. During this time Moore has his off court issues followed later by Casto and Thompson.

I think it's valid to say we under performed missing the Tournament and ending up in the NIT. A good NIT run ends in a blowout loss to Wichita State and a year later we are paying to get into the CBI. If the NIT or even CBI year had catapulted us upward that's one thing but it was the start of a clear slide with any footprints of the Bennett era becoming distant.

 

[Loyal Coug]

The end result is why coug basketball is where it is today.The program needs to improve and stabilize at least for a period of 3-4 years..

Huh. We had winning records for 6 years in a row from 06-07 to 11-12? Sounds like stability to me. But you are saying the end result of the Bennett years is where we are today?

 

[avabob1]

In 2011 we went as far as Klay could take us. No real offense besides him. When Klay was off we lost. That's why we looked so bad against Wichita

 

[SaveFerris]

Attendance Bone's year1:
OOC - 7,423
Pac 10 - 7,656
Overall - 7,323

Attendance Bone's year 2:
OOC - 6,825
Pac 10 - 7,747
Overall - 7,605

Tony's final year:
OOC - 7,862
Pac 10 - 8,139
Overall - 8,018

Conference attendance slipped 392 per game from Tony's final to Bone's second year. I don't know if that slip suggests people didn't support Bone compared to Bennett from a butts in seat perspective.

 

[avabob1]

I would call that drop off statistically insignificant

 

[Glad Cougar]

I would call that drop off statistically insignificant

That's precisely the point Save Ferris is trying to make. Bone's first two years seemed to show a fairly close level of interest by Cougar fans from an attendance standpoint. There may have been some anti-Bone sentiment early on this board, but I don't recall that much until year 3 and beyond. My memory is getting hazy since that was so long ago. I can only say that I supported Bone until year 4 of his 5 year stint. By then, it was clear to me that the trend line was moving in the wrong direction.

Glad Cougar

 

[avabob1]

I think the message boards were quite a bit more negative than the overall fan base. Things turned south for Bone the last 2 years. He pretty much panicked and tried to go to a Slow down offense the last year.

 

[SaveFerris]

We were easily outdrawing Gonzaga with their 6,000 seat Kennel in all those years. I was actually looking at player stats from 2011 and saw the attendance numbers. Klay (19.6), Aden (12.7), Casto (12), and Moore (9.1) were the scoring leaders. Moore is always brought up but Aden also received a lot of board criticism for his volume shooting (about the same rate per minute played as Thompson) and lack of defense.

The board talk isn't a fair representation of overall fans. Attendance numbers were much more telling in terms of overall support.

 

[avabob1]

I agree about the boards not being representative of the overall fan base. On the boards Moore took more heat than Aden, but it was close

 

[7ICoug]

Flynn is gone and appears to be the first that had some talent that is moving along. Appears to me that there is some thing under the radar that is affecting hoop.

As to Dick at least he had the "huge" victory after victory wiping out the historical streaks of looses for that I will always be grateful. And he brought us several years of relevance.

 

[avabob1]

If any more key players leave I agree. If it stops at Flynn it may be just about him.

 

[BraindeadCoug]

My guess is Flynn is sick of losing and busting his butt with no possible chance of playing in the NCAA Tournament.

He will transfer to a school where he can improve his overall skills during his redshirt season and then have two chances to go to the tournament. It may end up being like the kid from Portland who went to UW for two years and told Romar he didn’t feel like he was improving and then transfered to Gonzaga and makes it all the way to the title game.

I wish Flynn would stay at WSU because I really like watching him play but understand his decision so I wish him well.

 

[avabob1]

I think what you say may be true, but if so, did he think he was going to the dance when he signed with WSU. He got a chance to play in the PAC when nobody else wanted him. He is not a pro prospect, but if he was he could have just as good a chance at WSU as anywhere.

Again, if there continues to be more exodus, then something else is going on.

 

[ElComanche]

It is interesting that first,Franks indicates that he wants to go pro. That is certainly understandable but probably misguided. Then, PG Flynn wants to transfer. That hurts but he probably has different reasons and may not be in his best interests. Then Ergas transfers and the Kent haters call it a dumpster fire. These same people were originally rooting for Ergas to leave to free up a spot for a new recruit. From what i have seen from the other coaches, like Seltzer and Haskins, that they are busy recruiting and it does not look like the exodus and dumpster fire the Kent haters are hoping for.Time will tell but it looks like the rest of the squad is staying.I may be placing too much trust in Elleby and Kunc but the cougs may be a juco or/and or transfer PG away from being a better team next year. The totally asinine articles like the nerd moderator from the other board are basically stupid and he should resign in embarrassment. Of course,i am hoping for a couple of quality recruits to fill in the holes.I ,personally, am looking forward ro who the new coach will be and other commits.A point guard and another big man is what is needed

 

[avabob1]

Ergas is clearly unrelated to the other two, and is probably in his best interest and the Cougs. Another ball handler in the back court shouldn't be that hard to find. An athletic big is going to be a lot tougher, but I agree those two could make us better next year assuming no more key fefections