COUGARS

FROM PULLMAN -- For a regular ol' Thursday in mid-May, yesterday was pretty heavy on WSU news of the basketball variety. Oh, and Mike Leach apparently shot a bear. Read on.

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First, the news. As we reported on the blog and in the newspaper this morning, Jeff Hironaka has accepted a new role as WSU's director of player development/special assistant to the head coach. This means he'll no longer have the title of assistant coach, meaning he can't recruit off-campus or give instruction on the court during games. CougCenter has some thoughts on the matter. ... In other basketball news, 2012 signee Richard Peters failed to qualify academically and is pursuing a junior college to play for this season. It's still possible he could wind up at WSU in the future, but he won't be there for the 2012-13 campaign. ... Mike Leach went bear hunting this week, and apparently bagged himself quite the prize. Some of the responses to his tweet are pretty entertaining, too. With this topic, also, CougCenter continues to have thoughts. ... More on the Leach/Craig James saga. ... Thanks to reader Dave Ranta for pointing out this USA Today photo gallery, which features a familiar face if you click through to the fourth photo. ...  Bob Condotta relays Phil Steele's preseason all-conference team, which features Marquess Wilson and Travis Long on the first team.

All for now.

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

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