Bennett Ball hits rock bottom

PULLMAN – In a back hallway of Beasley Coliseum, Ben Howland was going on about the point where a coach’s message makes its way through, when all the teaching and repetition come together and a basketball team finally gets it.

“The magic third year,” he called it.

Right. So why is it that Dick Bennett’s hat is full of rabbit droppings this morning, with no rabbit to show for it?

The odd trick against the Huskies notwithstanding, the Washington State Cougars are not conjuring up any magic these days, though they may yet make their coach disappear. After their last home loss a couple of weeks ago, Bennett’s characteristic postgame misery plunged so low that he wondered “if it’s time I be put out to pasture.”

Then came Thursday night’s epic calamity against Howland’s UCLA Bruins, a 50-30 evisceration in which the Cougs betrayed the pulse – and the post moves – of a cadaver.

Thirty points. From this circumstance, the Cougs need pitons and an ice axe just to reach the base camp of Mt. Nadir.

So naturally Bennett was asked what voodoo he has to get the Cougs out of this mess they’ve gotten themselves into.

“I don’t know – they’re probably hoping I announce an early retirement,” he said. “I’m not sure they’re going to regroup for me.”

Been here before, haven’t we? Wazzu stumbles, Bennett despairs and hints start dropping like, well, not like anything the Cougs sent airborne in the vague direction of the basket Thursday night. That stuff didn’t drop, it dented.

The result was a grim ordeal that wasn’t fun on any level. Unbasketball. Although you certainly had to appreciate the vise that the 13th-ranked Bruins applied on the defensive end to start the game.

Seven-oh. Eleven-oh. Fourteen-oh. Eighteen-two.

So alarmed was Howland when Ivory Clark snaked through for a tip-in and WSU’s second basket 9 minutes into the game that he immediately called timeout. It only seemed as if he called one after every Cougar field goal, almost damning his team by the insinuation.

You let these guys score on you?

Actually, he was thrilled by the Bruins’ defensive posture, noting that WSU guard Josh Akognan, who managed all of four points, “had 25 in a half against us the last time we played. (Kyle) Weaver did not score and I think he’s a very good player.

“It’s just a credit to our players, how hard they’re playing defensively.”

This is a UCLA that hasn’t been seen in a good many years, and yet one that could have been envisioned three years ago when Howland was coaxed back to the West Coast from the bump and grind of the Big East. What perhaps wasn’t envisioned is the Bruins’ arrival to this point – 20-4 and knocking on the door of the Top 10 – with five freshmen and two sophomores among the nine players who logged double-figure minutes Thursday night.

“You’d better be good in your third year,” Howland insisted. “I was really proud of what we did last year in terms of getting to the tournament with limited numbers, but we’re a lot better than a year ago.”

Why the third year?

“So you don’t get fired. That’s what I tell other coaches – you’d better schedule, you’d better do everything. You’d better be good your third year.”

Bennett, of course, is in his third year and the Cougars are not good, but the context is decidedly different. Indeed, Bennett has often proclaimed that the third year of program building – which is what he’s done at every coaching stop – is the most taxing, the true transition to coaching your own recruits. Of course, the Cougars are no younger than UCLA, which only underscores again the traditional difference in talent procurement in these two programs. Howland tried to be generous in suggesting the Cougars will be picked in the upper half of the Pac-10 this year, though not if any of the pickers saw this fiasco.

Still, you know the Cougars are encountering problems more serious than even Bennett might have imagined when he said, “I’m just so disappointed with our heart.”

And that was the face slap. The Cougars weren’t just out-talented, they were shamefully out-toughed. “Physical and mental intimidation,” Bennett called it, and forward Robbie Cowgill agreed that “we backed away from them tonight.”

Bennett Ball has developed a slow leak. Naturally, you don’t want to ignore those two victories over Washington, even if the Huskies’ star is falling, but they just make the Cougs look like a tease.

“There are several guys who are teases,” Bennett agreed. “They’ll show you and they’ll take it away. Reminds me of a lot of girls I thought liked me at one time.”

And so maybe the next tease is right around the corner.

“Kids are funny – they’ll bounce back,” he said. “It’s the beauty of the sport. You can be so devastated and the next day it’s starting to feel a little better, and then you get into a game and if you happen to play well it’s forgotten. That’s not the way to build championship-caliber programs, but it’s the way it is with those of us who are struggling.”

You know. Those who haven’t found the magic.