Good times all around
PULLMAN – OK, maybe this is unfair to those Cougar fans who have just hopped on the bandwagon over the course of this season. But try this trivia question out anyway.
Who was Washington State’s leading scorer last season? (Hint: He was a sophomore in 2005-06.)
It’s not Derrick Low, the Cougars’ top point-getter this year. Nor Robbie Cowgill, or Kyle Weaver.
In fact, it was Josh Akognon, who at 10.3 points a game was the lone WSU player to average double figures in Dick Bennett’s final year as coach.
But Akognon, who had a starring role in WSU’s win at Washington and then scored 25 in the second half at UCLA, decided to transfer after the season’s finish, his role having diminished down the stretch.
Sitting out this season at his new home, Cal State Fullerton, Akognon has watched as his former team has gone from worst to second in the Pac-10.
“I’m happy for them,” Akognon said on Friday. “It’s always sad that I couldn’t be a part of it, but then again I don’t have any regrets.
“There’s no bitterness or anything like that. My brothers are doing good, so it’s cool.”
By all accounts, Akognon left WSU on good terms with the coaching staff and his teammates. So it’s hard not to wonder how this 24-6 regular season, just completed over the weekend, might have been different had the guard decided to stay for his junior year.
“It all would have been how he developed and how he looked in the preseason,” WSU coach Tony Bennett said, admitting that he’s rarely given it any thought. (The coach had to pause for a moment trying to remember which school Akognon now plays for). “Obviously he would have had a role, and if he would have improved and developed, I’m sure he would have helped us. I don’t know if he would have started, if he would have played 20 minutes.”
Akognon said it’s been difficult sitting out this season (Fullerton is 19-9 going into the Big West tournament) but at the same time he’s tried not to follow the Cougars too closely.
“I talk to a couple of (my former teammates). I’ve tried not to talk to them towards the end of this year because I want them to be focused,” he said, adding that he’s seen two or three games on television. “There’s a reason why I left, and if I leave and focus more on the school, that’s not a smart thing for me to do. I never should have left if that’s the case. I see the scores on ESPN and all that other stuff, but I don’t really follow the games – no internet or stuff like that.”
Still, it’s odd even to the current Cougars that someone who was a significant part of the building process at WSU is not here now that the benefits are pouring in.
“It is kind of weird, him being here and going through the rough experience and now kind of I guess learning that we had it together,” Weaver said. “But now we’re finally getting this thing together, and him being gone, it’s kind of tough both ways.”
Akognon said he may try to travel to Los Angeles this week to see a few friends at the Pac-10 tournament, but even if he misses that there’s no doubt he’ll be glued to a television when the Cougars play in the NCAA tournament for the first time in 13 years.
“I’m definitely going to watch that,” Akognon said. “I’m telling everybody, there’s really only two teams in America that I want to see do good, and that’s Washington State and Fullerton.”