Washington State Basketball Coach Ken Bone Talks Cougar Hoops

Pullman, WA —After two tough games on the road, the Washington State Cougar men's basketball team (6-2) returns home to take on nearby rival Idaho (5-2). Tip off for the Wednesday night game on Friel Court in Pullman is slated for 8pm PST.

Before taking a look at the Vandals, there were a number of topics covered by Coach Ken Bone during his news conference Tuesday morning.

Coach Bone learned more about his team from the games with Gonzaga (6-2) and Kansas State (7-1), both losses for the young Cougs.

Despite playing in front of hostile fans in Spokane and Manhattan, KS, Bone was impressed by the composure of his squad. His players didn't let noise or heckling become a factor. Poise under pressure in these hostile atmospheres will prove to be a significant asset for the Cougs once they begin conference play.

Revisiting the Gonzaga contest where the Cougs lead for about the first 30 minutes of play, Coach Bone was pleased to see his players match up well against one of the top teams in the nation on their home court. The Zags were clearly the best team WSU had gone up against in their first six games. He felt they handled the situation with composure.

When asked if he would do anything differently in the second half of the Gonzaga game, Coach Bone was candid in his response:

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"After watching the video a couple of times I think more of it falls on myself than the kids. The dilemma is this. You get up 12 or 13 with the guys you have out there, so do you stick with them or do you take them out and think, 'Well, I’m going to rest those guys now and play some other kids that in my mind aren’t quite as good and won’t compete quite as well.' Within that, we’re resting some of our better players. I did not want to take that risk that game. I felt like we could weather the storm. There would be enough timeouts, dead balls situations and the adrenaline at the end of the game would help us get through it. But as I look back on that game, I think that hurt us. It hurt by the fact that we just don’t have the kind of depth that I feel we need to compete with a team of that level for 40 minutes... We just physically ran out of gas."

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Kansas State ran out to a big lead over WSU to begin their game. It was a lead the Cougs weren't able to overcome. Coach Bone credited Kansas State Coach Frank Miller with having his team well prepared to come out aggressively right from the opening tip:

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"Playing against guys that are little bigger, a little quicker, a little stronger and way more aggressive. It’s hard to simulate that in practice. Once we settled down, after we were down like 15 or 18 points, I thought we did a much better job. It was that initial blow that really hit us and we didn’t handle it very well."

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Kansas State played tough, physical basketball for 40 minutes to earn their 86-69 victory:

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"Everything they did, we had not seen. That’s why you play those games. That’s exactly why you play those types of teams to prepare you for your conference. We came out of there a better team. We didn’t play well, but now we’ve experienced what we did that night. I think it will help us down the road."

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Some might view two consecutive non-conference losses by the Cougs with a raised eyebrow. Looking at the remaining games on the schedule, there were some very good things coming out of this past road trip for WSU. Coach Bone pointed out the tenure of both Coach Martin and Coach Few at Kansas State and Gonzaga puts them where an established basketball program should be. Both schools have players with experience:

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"That’s where we hope to be in another couple of years. Right now, we have not even got in a number of things within our motion offense."

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Sophomore guard Klay Thompson was leading the nation in scoring before the last two games. Thompson remains the main offensive weapon for Washington State, but he struggled with the defensive effort put on him by the Zags and K-State:

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"I think (Klay Thompson) has learned that teams will play more physical than the first six games we had. He needs to work on his ball handling. He’s been in the gym each day since we got back from Kansas State, just working on his ball handling and going against pressure defense because he’ll continue to see that."

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Coach Bone pointed out the biggest challenge facing Thompson in the coming months will be the rotation of players defending him. With Klay on the floor roughly 35 minutes every game, he will have to pace himself to compete with fresh legs coming at him.

Switching gears and looking to the game with Idaho Wednesday night, Coach Bone sees similarities between the Vandals and K-State. Aggressive and quick, second year coach Don Verlin saw his team down No. 25 Portland with a smothering defense.

Idaho has a pair of talented guards in Steffan Johnson and Mac Hobson. Yes, some may remember Hobson began his collegiate career at Washington State before transferring to Idaho in search of more playing time and an up-tempo style. For that matter, Johnson is a transfer as well, moving to Idaho from Pacific where he was All-Big West. He was selected as the WAC's Preseason Newcomer of the Year.

Coach Verlin doesn't have a big man in the center position to intimidate and grab rebounds. However, the Vandals are showing improvement hitting the boards.

In a Rivals story recently, Coach Verlin had this to say about his club:

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“Our team will play hard,” he said. “They’ve got a little something about them. … This team is going to play hard, night in and night out.”

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If you can't make it to Beasley Coliseum Wednesday, the WSU-Idaho will be telecast on FSN Northwest. As always, you can enjoy listening to Bud Nameck calling the action on the Cougar Sports Radio Network.

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WSU - IDAHO FUN FACTS:

• Washington State and Idaho are meeting for the 105th consecutive men’s basketball season.

• The two schools have the oldest continuous rivalry West of the Mississippi River

• It is the sixth longest continuous rivalry nationally behind Columbia/Yale (109th season), Princeton/Yale (109th season), Pennsylvania/Princeton (108th season), Columbia/Pennsylvania (107th season) and Cornell/Pennsylvania (107th season).

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Cougar Hoops Notes:

Coach Ken Bone noted, "...Brock Motum hasn’t played a lot of minutes but he’s 8 for 10 from the field and 3 for 4 from the three-point line. He’s just gotten better and better after he tripped over his own feet that one game. I’m excited about that because I do believe he’s got a chance to be really good down the road. He’s made good steps even though he’s had minimal minutes."

Bone went on to say, "I think Reggie Moore and Xavier Thames , for being freshmen, have done some really good things. They are not consistent at this point, but for freshmen I think they’re doing some good stuff on the floor."

Originally published in Lew Wright's WSU Cougars column on Examiner.com