Bennett’s style taking hold

PULLMAN – Perhaps because he is so demanding of his players – and even coarsely so – Dick Bennett doesn’t just strongly feel that they deserve the pleasure of gratification, he feels it desperately.

Which, of course, compels him to drive them even harder.

Especially this season at Washington State. He has pointed out that in each of his other coaching stops along the college basketball trail – the Wisconsin campuses of Stevens Point, Green Bay and Madison – Year 3 has always been the stretched end of the bungee, with the upswing to come. That isn’t always reflected in the record – Year 3 yielded 18 wins at Green Bay – but apparently in the degree of difficulty.

“It’s when your first batch of recruits are just sophomores,” he said, “and they’re playing most of the minutes. They’re not in secondary roles anymore.”

Having been through this three times previously, Bennett should have perfected the recipe by now. So just how is he applying it at Wazzu?

“I’ve been really hard on them,” he allowed, “which is probably the exact wrong thing. So hard that I felt I was in danger of losing a couple of them this last week. Thankfully, I’m a Christian, so I’m forgiven 70 times seven. I’ve had to ask for a lot of forgiveness.”

Yet almost every time he fears “losing” them, Bennett gets them back.

On Saturday, the Cougars sliced up next-door neighbor Idaho 63-37 at Friel Court, the largest margin of victory in the Bennett era – though that was more reflective of the Vandals coming down with a devastating strain of terrible. If you didn’t know him better, you’d have thought Idaho coach Leonard Perry had canceled practice for a week and had been taking the team out for ice cream every afternoon.

But the Cougars did their share right, too. Defending. Rebounding.

“And one thing we hadn’t done yet, and that’s play hard,” Bennett said.

Now, that may be there the next game – Wednesday at home against Wyoming – and it may not. Twelve of Bennett’s 13 scholarship players have been in the program 15 months or less, and as such they will be prone to soft focus, flightiness and fragility. Injuries have contributed to slow the progress, too, though good news arrived Saturday with the return of junior college guard Rodney Edgerson and the medical clearance for center Robbie Cowgill to resume to practice.

“The biggest concern I have with these young kids is their alertness,” Bennett said. “I just haven’t seen enough of it. I love to work with smart teams and I think they’ll get there, but that’s what’s bothered me more than anything else. They’re all products of AAU ball where it goes up and down the floor and it doesn’t matter if you take a bad shot.”

Or if you don’t fight through a screen, or any of the ABCs in Bennett’s litany of musts and mustn’ts. Already he knows he has overspent his harangues on these issues, and so occasionally he tries other ways to instill his message.

“I’ve told them, for example, to watch high-level ball – watch Gonzaga,” he said. “But when you watch teams like that, in a way it fools them, because they make the game look easy.

“Most young kids don’t realize that good teams don’t try impossible things. They take care of what’s right in front of them. They play – they don’t necessarily make plays. Now, there comes a time in every game when you have to, but most of the kids today simply try to make too many plays.”

Not that the Cougs had to make many against Idaho, but that’s the point. By holding UI without a field goal the last 121/2 minutes of the first half, all Wazzu needed was to make its free throws and knock down the well-earned jumper.

But, again, most nights it won’t come this easily. And by Year 3 of a restoration project, most programs find their fan base is beginning to wonder when it will start to look easy.

Bennett, too.

The Cougs inadvisably opened their season on Apple Cup evening against UC Riverside and put all of 1,526 into Friel’s seats. A few nights later in Spokane, the Cougars lost to Brigham Young in front of 3,138, the majority of whom apparently had just returned from LDS missions. The once-intense Battle of the Palouse drew a Thanksgiving-break audience of 2,135 – the third smallest in recorded history.

“I think that’s hard on kids, too,” Bennett said. “I feel for them because I want them to enjoy it – and if they keep plugging, maybe the crowds will come. But I’m sure that makes my approach even harder on them. You make such a pitch to get them and then you’re hard on them and they’re wondering what they’re doing here, especially in light of the fact that they probably played in front of more people in high school.

“This whole process – if we get through this year, a good share of the pain will have been experienced and then I think there’ll be more joy, more fun.”

Seventy times seven, he hopes.