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FROM PULLMAN -- We already passed along the biggest news of the day, but there is more to summarize from Ken Bone's two teleconferences on Tuesday. Read on.

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We wrote a story for Wednesday's paper about Faisal Aden's torn ACL, which we'll link when we can. Also, there was this earlier blog post. I did want to add the following quote from Bone. I asked if he felt Aden was ever unfairly characterized by fans who grew frustrated by his shot selection and volume. Here's what the coach said: "If that’s the reputation he had from fans, I would say to me, personally, he’s a scorer and he’s showed that against the two best teams in the conference when they came to town, that he was a great scorer and it didn’t have to be just shooting threes. He got to the free throw line, made 90 percent of his free throws this year. … He shot a great percentage from the line, he could get to the rim, pull up and shoot the mid range shot, so he could score a variety of ways, and if you look at most great scorers, there is a selfish side, just like most great rebounders are selfish going to get rebounds or guys that get a lot of assists, they’d almost look off a shot to get an assist and that’s what made Faisal such a great scorer, is that he really had a mindset for that. Sometimes that’s looked at as being selfish, and I’m not sitting here saying he always took great shots, but most scorers don’t." ... I asked Bone to evaluate the team's progress at the conference's midway point. He said he sees three really good wins, and a couple losses they don't think they should have. "And a unique situation where we’re halfway through and we’ve only played two games on our home court. It’s nice to play at home and hopefully this weekend we show that." ... Bone said it can be difficult to avoid looking back and fretting over the fact they couldn't beat Utah or Arizona State, but that they also need  to appreciate the tough wins over Oregon State, Stanford and California. "It’s not what we had hoped for, but that’s where we’re at. We need to just  keep moving forward, get on to the next game and USC and try to build upon that." ... As for the Trojans, Bone praised the way they defend -- it'll be another grinder, similar to the Utah and ASU games -- but cautioned they have some players capable of scoring, too. ... Sounds as if we may have seen the last of Mike Ladd this season, as Bone said it's "up in the air" whether Ladd will return this year. He has a torn ligament in his right thumb, which doesn't seem to be improving much. Bone said they've thought about calling it a season and doing surgery now, but since the year has pretty much already been lost anyway, they might as well wait a bit longer to see if it heals in time for Ladd to at least play another couple of games.

Here's some video of Bone's comments ...

All for now.

Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple

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