Bennett to make retirement official today

PULLMAN – Washington State men’s basketball coach Dick Bennett will announce his retirement this morning, effective at season’s end.

Bennett informed his players after Monday’s practice of the coming announcement, and now the two remaining regular-season games – plus the Pac-10 tournament – will be his final contests as head coach. WSU has scheduled a news conference for 10:30 a.m.

Bennett’s son, associate head coach Tony Bennett, was named the head coach designate last summer and will take over his father’s post.

Junior guard Antonio Chavers said Dick Bennett reinforced his desire to finish the season playing good basketball.

“He’d like to see a good effort to finish the season,” Chavers said. “He seemed happy with the way everything is happening.”

Bennett, 62, has a 36-46 record in three seasons at WSU and a 490-303 career record, which included previous stops at Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Wisconsin-Green Bay and Wisconsin.

Bennett’s crowning achievement came in 2000, when he guided the Badgers to the Final Four. He stepped down three games into the next season.

Aside from the Final Four appearance, Bennett’s coaching career will be remembered for suffocating defense and unusually low scores. Perhaps fittingly, his final home game at Friel Court, Saturday, was a 39-37 loss to Stanford. That was the lowest-scoring Pac-10 conference game since the introduction of the shot clock, besting a record WSU set this season against UCLA.

He has spent much of this season hinting at his probable retirement, hints that have grown louder and more obvious in recent weeks. Bennett has also acknowledged part of his rationale for coming out of retirement to take the WSU job was to help set up Tony for a head coaching job.

The younger Bennett, who will be introduced officially as the new head coach today, does not have new contract terms worked out with WSU.