John Blanchette: Harmeling’s team spirit still visible

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Daven Harmeling and the Washington State Cougars commanded the public’s attention at pretty much the same time.

Three 3-pointers in the opening win over UAB. Hey, they’ve got another kid besides Low who can shoot it. The four-point play that daggered Boise State in Spokane. That’s the kind of game last year’s Cougs would lose. Twenty points in the breakthrough upset of Gonzaga. It’s great to get a headline for a change. Twenty-eight points and No. 7 Arizona goes down in Pullman for the first time in 21 years. How about those Cougs?

The coaching gig stayed in the family, the cast was pretty much the same. But Daven Harmeling wasn’t playing a year ago and now he was, so there was that along with the hand of coach Tony Bennett to help explain Wazzu basketball’s U-turn from mediocre to magical.

Daven Harmeling. Whatever happened to him?

He can’t help but wonder himself, but not in the way you might imagine. He pines to play a bigger role in Wazzu’s ongoing success, which today takes them into the second round of the NCAA tournament against Vanderbilt, but he completely understands why he hasn’t of late.

No, he doesn’t just understand. He endorses it.

“The way I’ve been shooting the last few weeks, Tony would be a fool to get me more looks,” Harmeling said. “I wouldn’t do it differently if I were him.”

There are endless fascinations to the 2007 Cougars, all threads in the fairy tale of the team that went from last place to No. 13 in the nation. One of the strangest is that on any given night, one of the team’s major players might disappear and not be seen for weeks.

Lately it’s been Harmeling, the 6-foot-7 sophomore who is still the team’s third-leading scorer yet has averaged just 3.3 points over the last six games.

“I’m disappointed in how I’ve shot it,” he confessed. “I feel like I’ve let the team down in that regard. But I’m not in a state of depression or anything. I’m not going to let it get to me.”

There are several theories about Harmeling’s … what should we call it? A slump? A funk?

“You can definitely call it a funk,” he said.

One is that Aron Baynes’ integration into the rotation late this season cut into Harmeling’s minutes just as it did with Ivory Clark, whose back-from-purgatory heroics were the talk of Thursday’s first-round win over Oral Roberts. Another comes from Harmeling himself – the revelation that he goes through one of these almost every season, going back to high school. And he’s probably attracted some increased attention in the wake of the big nights against Gonzaga, Arizona and, most recently, Cal.

“I have noticed a difference in the way teams have played me – not that I’m a star and they have to stop me,” he said. “Before, when our guards would penetrate, defenders would be quick to leave me and try to stop penetration. Now the guy seems kind of glued to me. Part of that is me – having to learn to create more scoring opportunities and not be so one-dimensional.”

By now you’ve probably figured out Harmeling’s self-effacement doesn’t blow as hot and cold as his jumper. It’s a good quality to have on this team.

Clark was a little noisy about his diminished role late in the season, but not disruptively so. Guard Mac Hopson vanished from the rotation for a full month after starting in November. Baynes and Taylor Rochestie have both had liquid roles.

“Coach Tony’s going to do what’s best for the team,” said guard Derrick Low. “Hopefully, some of the players can understand that.”

Bennett has employed seven different starting combinations, even shaking it up the last week of the regular season – virtual coaching heresy.

“I admire that so late in the season Tony has been able to change his lineup and either get better or maintain what they’re doing,” said Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, whose own five has been static since November. “Not many coaches would want to switch when they’re having such success.”

Bennett sees that as something unique to this team, but he’s always going to gauge his judgment on how his guys are playing – and practicing.

“It’s the best way I know to reward guys and keep them hungry,” he said. “I know it gets discouraging. As a first-year head coach, that was one of the hardest things for me – to look these guys in the eye when they’re laying it on the line and know they want to play and not be able to do it. But what’s best for the team has to come first.”

And at the moment, what’s best for the Cougs isn’t necessarily the best for the player who shot down the Zags and Arizona.

“It is, actually,” Harmeling said. “If we win and I play 10 minutes, that’s fine.”

Opportunity, after all, is only a game away. But you don’t play it if you don’t win this one.