Pac-12 Tournament: Cougars to Face Colorado
By Ben Renner
The Cougars finished their unfortunate regular season with 16 straight losses. Do they have a chance against Colorado in the Pac-12 Tournament?
The Pac-12 Tournament represents the last game(s) the Cougars will have to play this season. Coach Ernie Kent wasn’t expected to do much with the roster entering the season, but he was likely expected to finish better than 12th in the Pac-12 with a 1-17 conference record. The Cougars have solid building blocks in place like forward Josh Hawkinson, who was named to his second-straight All Pac-12 Honorable Mention honor earlier this week.
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If the Cougars expect to advance at all in the Pac-12 Tournament, they’ll have to figure out how to score. Whether the problem is other teams clamping down on their best scorers, players like Hawkinson and Que Johnson, or by forcing sloppy, turnover-prone play, the Cougars have struggled to score consistently all season, except for two games against the Huskies, in which they scored over 90 points both times.
The Cougars play the Colorado Buffaloes tomorrow in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas at 2:40 pm. With their postseason hopes gone weeks ago, Washington State is merely trying to show Kent and the program’s fans something heading into the offseason. Kent is only in his second year, and while it’s fair to criticize him for his team’s poor performance throughout the season, it’s unfair to call for his head just yet. Kent has a track record of success with teams like Oregon earlier in the decade and needs time to create his own program at Washington State.
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Whether he’ll be able to recruit at a program like WSU remains to be seen, but Ernie Kent is no doubt preparing his players to fight hard and show him something for next year at 2016’s Pac-12 Tournament.