Ewu’S Mission Continues Aggers Puts Pieces In Place For Another Successful Run

Even Steve Aggers finds himself, on occasion, marveling at how far the Eastern Washington University men’s basketball program has come in the past five years.

And he’s the guy who mapped out the trail.

“It’s really unbelievable what we’ve been able to accomplish here,” Aggers, the Eagles’ fifth-year coach, said Wednesday before leaving for the NCAA’s Final Four in Indianapolis, where he will be honored as the National Association of Basketball Coaches District 13 coach of the year.

“We’re very proud. It’s a real tribute to our assistant coaches and players, who have persevered to become the cornerstone of this program.”

When Aggers took over the EWU program in the fall of 1995, it was in shambles. The Eagles were coming off a 6-20 season and were ranked among the worst Division I programs in the nation.

Working mainly with holdovers from the John Wade era, Aggers staggered to a humbling 3-23 finish in his first season. The following year, his team improved to 7-19 and, in just his third season, he led the Eagles to a 16-11 record and a third-place finish in the Big Sky Conference.

Last year’s team slipped to a disappointing 10-17 but managed to become the first in school history to make back-to-back appearances in the Big Sky tournament. And this year, Aggers led his Eagles to a 15-11 record and its first share of the Big Sky regular-season title.

Now, the two-time Big Sky coach of the year is trying to take his team to the next level, where it can consistently challenge the league’s elite and, perhaps, make it to the NCAA Tournament.

“Consistency and a shot at the Big Dance, those are the next steps we hope to take,” said Aggers, who spent his first two seasons at Eastern “putting out fires and cleaning up messes from the past.”

And despite losing leading scorer Ryan Hansen, two-time All-Big Sky point guard Deon Williams and key reserves Will Levy and Dennis Fitzgerald from this year’s team, it looks as if the Eagles might be ready for those next two steps.

Thanks to his tireless recruiting efforts, Aggers finally has a decent class mix among the players on his roster - along with an abundance of talent, primarily on the front line.

“I really like our front line,” Aggers said, referring to a veteran group of bigs that includes returning starters Chris White and Kareem Hunter, along with 6-foot-11 sophomore redshirt Chris Johnson, 7-fot prep recruit Jeremy McCulloch and 6-8 sophomore Keyon Cooley, a highly touted high school star from Long Beach (Calif.) Poly, who sat out his freshman year as an academic non-qualifier.

Adding intrigue - and size - to the mix is Jason Humbert, a 6-10, 240-pounder, who has rejoined the program after quitting the team last year to deal with personal problems, including a divorce. Humbert, who came to Eastern in 1997 after averaging 12 points and six rebounds as a freshman at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Ore., missed seven games his sophomore season with a broken hand and then blew out a knee just four games into the 1998-99 season. He spent last winter working in the Eagles’ equipment room and recently approached Aggers about rejoining the team.

“We’re going to give Jason a chance to come back,” Aggers said of Humbert, who started 11 games and averaged 5.3 points and 3.9 rebounds as a sophomore. “It took him some time to get his personal life in order and he hasn’t played in a year and a half, so we’ll see how he develops.

“But he’s a 6-10, 230-pound guy that was, at one time, a real quality player. And if it works out for him, we’re going to have a nice group of front-line players.”

Aggers’ main concern is on the perimeter, where he must replace the firepower of Hansen and the floor leadership of Williams.

Junior Jamal Jones, who backed up Williams at the point last winter, returns, along with shooting guard Aaron Olson, who averaged 10.5 points per game last season and scored a career-high 36 in 112-86 rout of Cascade College.

Sophomore Marco Quinto and junior transfer Alex McKie were both role players last year, but could develop into key contributors. Most of the back-court help, however, will most likely come from former Washington State signee Marquis Poole, a 6-2 combo guard from Los Angeles, who enrolled at Eastern last fall as an academic non-qualifier. Also on board are Alvin Snow and Eddie Lincoln, a pair of Seattle-area high school recruits who, along with McCulloch, signed early letters of intent.

Poole, from Centennial High School, is a Pac-10-caliber player. Snow, another 6-2 combo guard, averaged more than 20 points per game in leading Franklin High to a 21-5 record and sixth-place finish in the State 4A tournament.

Lincoln, a 6-5 swing man, was a standout at O’Dea High School and helped the Fighting Irish (20-11) to a fourth-place finish in the State 3A tournament.

With only one scholarship to give, Aggers is pursuing a junior college transfer who can slash and shoot it from the wing.

“We really need someone who can score,” he said. “This year, we were more of a 3-point shooting, perimeter-oriented team. Next year, we’ll probably be more of an inside team, maybe even a power team that plays more like Stanford.”

Aggers is convinced that you need an inside-outside approach to be successful in today’s college game. And he hopes he has laid the groundwork for that sort of team.

“It took me a couple of years to get a handle on just what we needed to compete in the Big Sky,” he said. “I’m looking forward to us being more balanced, which should make us much more consistent.”

This sidebar appeared with the story:

RECAP

Eagles 2001

Following is a breakdown of what will happen with the EWU men’s basketball roster next season:

Who’s leaving

PG Deon Williams (Sr., 10.4 ppg, 3.8 apg); G Ryan Hansen (Sr., 12.5 ppg); F Will Levy (Sr., 7.3 ppg, 6.3 rpg); F Dennis Fitzgerald (Sr., 6.0 ppg, 3.2 rpg).

Who’s returning

F Aaron Olson (Jr., 10.5 ppg); C Chris White (Jr., 9.7 ppg, 6.3 rpb, 34 blks); PG Jamal Jones (Jr., 8.1 ppg, 3.3 apg); F Kareem Hunter (Jr., 6.5 ppg, 5.3 rpg); G Marco Quinto (So., 3.7 ppg); G Alex McKie (Jr., 2.5 ppg).

Redshirts

C Chris Johnson; F Scott Freymond; C Jason Humbert.

Incoming recruits

C Jeremy McCulloch; G Alvin Snow; G Eddie Lincoln.

Becoming eligible

G Marquis Poole; F Keyon Cooley.