COUGARS

Saturday, five seniors will be on the court for the last time as a Cougar: Daven Harmeling, Taylor Rochestie, Aron Baynes, Caleb Forrest and walk-on Ryan Bailey. For tomorrow, I've written about the one who has had the most challenging senior season. For the unedited version of tomorrow's story, read on.
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• Here is the long version of the Harmeling story.

PULLMAN – Daven Harmeling has been to the heights and seen the sights. He's visited the valleys. College basketball holds no surprises for him anymore.

And yet, he wants more.

As Washington State's only fifth-year senior, Harmeling expected this season to be a culmination and continuation, the culmination of a successful collegiate career and the continuation of the Cougars' recent success.

Neither has happened.

Yet, when asked for one word to describe his final season of college basketball, Harmeling, a 6-foot-7 forward from Grand Junction, Colo., answers "challenging."

How so?

"How has it not been challenging," Harmeling responds. "Everything's been challenging, from the team standpoint first and foremost, losing a lot of close games.

"Individually it's been challenging of going through the struggles of being fairly successful in the nonconference and then not playing as well as I feel I can play."

When the Cougars face Arizona tonight at Beasley Coliseum, they'll take a 14-13 overall and 6-9 Pac-10 record into their final homestand of the season. This comes on the heels of back-to-back, 26-win, NCAA tournament seasons.

And Harmeling played a big role in both.

Entering WSU in the fall of 2004 with Dick Bennett's turn-it-around class that included Kyle Weaver, currently playing with Oklahoma City in the NBA, and Derrick Low, playing in France, Harmeling contributed as a freshman, set out with a shoulder injury the next season, then emerged as the Cougars most feared outside threat as a redshirt sophomore.

He shot 43 percent from beyond the arc that year, averaged 8.9 points and 2.9 rebounds as WSU returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 13 years. The high point was leading the Cougars to an upset of No. 7 Arizona with a career-high 28 points, the low missing a 3-pointer that would have given WSU an NCAA second-round win over Vanderbilt.

Last year his numbers were down, but he still converted 37.6 percent of his 3-pointers and had some huge games, including 18 in the opener against Boise State and 19 in a win at USC.

But Weaver, Low and Robbie Cowgill exhausted their eligibility, leaving Harmeling alone to wave the class' banner this season.

In the nonconference he seemed posed for a strong offensive season, scoring in double figures in half of the first 10 games. But since a 13-point effort against Montana State, Harmeling has scored a total of 50 points.

"I certainly feel that way," he says after being asked if a typical Harmeling performance may have made a difference in a game or two. "We've had a lot of close games, all these game I've shot 0 for 4, 1 for 5. I just feel bad because I'm a fifth-year senior and most of the games in the Pac-10 I feel like I haven't done anything for the team.

"It's kind of hard to stomach."

But maybe not that hard to figure out.

Harmeling, by his admission, hasn't shot the ball well since December. As he's struggled, playing time has diminished. Without time, it's hard to get out of a slump.

"It's not like he's been able to shoot 10, 12 shots a game or get to the line a lot, to get a shooter out of a slump," WSU coach Tony Bennett says. "The minutes he's playing and the role he's playing, it's usually one to four shots a game. If you're shooting double digits shots, you sometimes can find your stroke."

Cowgill, who still lives in Pullman and attends practice, sees another reason.

"For a guy like Daven, he's a shot maker and so he's best when there are guys around him making plays and he's able to spot up and make shots," says Cowgill. "Losing Kyle and Derrick, there's probably a little less of that."

Whatever the reason, Harmeling is living with it.

"People probably think I'm walking around, hanging my head, not believing I could make a shot for the rest of my life," he says. "I'm confident, I'm happy and things outside of basketball are great. I'm fine in terms of who I am. I'm excited about the next thing. There's always more."

The next thing is Arizona, against which Harmeling had his best Pac-10 game this season with nine points and six rebounds.

"We've got more games left," he says. "The final chapter of the book isn't written yet. That kind of keeps me going."

Harmeling's next chapter may just be coaching. Though he doesn't see himself as a head coach, being an assistant at the college level would be just fine. And this year's struggles have allowed him to see basketball from a different perspective – and may help him have empathy for the guys at the end of the bench.

"My sophomore year, when things started to go well for us, the guys on the bench were kind of grumbling, even when we were winning," he says, "and I would never understand it.

"Now, to be honest, there's been a couple games where I haven't been as good a teammate as I could have been, encouraging the guys who are playing. The (first) UCLA game, I really got it. We lost by two, I didn't play but I was more excited than anyone who played that game."

As he was last Saturday when the Cougars upset the Bruins in Los Angeles. Harmeling played just 6 minutes, but may have gotten a jump start on his future career.

"He only got a couple minutes in that UCLA game, but he was up coaching the whole time," Cowgill said. "For a senior who has experienced as much success as him, to do that, encourage the freshmen out there, coach them and teach them, I think is a tribute to his character."

Maybe it's just the culmination of all the lessons he's learned in Pullman.

"I've gone from playing in big games, doing it all, playing for almost 40 minutes, to not playing at all and everywhere in between," he says. "It's harder sitting and encouraging. It's not as easy as I thought it would be. ... That's another thing that was a challenge for me, to learn that.

"Coach (Dick) Bennett, he used to always talk about a slice of humble pie. I feel like I've had the whole pie this year."

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• That's it for this afternoon. We'll be back in the morning with our usual post. Until then …

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