John Blanchette: Note to WSU: Don’t let coach leave Pullman

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – No time to stop now.

Not after this turnaround, not after this season, not after these thrills.

Not after this game.

No time to linger over the sting, no time to cultivate complacence, no time to even hint to the matinee idol coach that he’s not appreciated enough – no, valued enough – and make the riches that are sure to be dangled in front of him ever more tempting.

The fable doesn’t have to come to an end for the Washington State Cougars. Just the first installment.

It wasn’t hands-down the highest drama the NCAA tournament has produced thus far – top-ranked Ohio State did need a minor miracle and overtime to subdue Xavier earlier in the day. But the Cougars’ punch-to-the-gut 78-74 loss in double overtime to Vanderbilt probably stands as the best game, though it wasn’t Wazzu at its best and the Cougars will not treasure it the way they’d planned.

“I can tell you for sure I won’t be looking at the tape of this game tonight,” coach Tony Bennett allowed.

You can understand why he wouldn’t be able to bear it again so soon.

Why he couldn’t stand to watch Daven Harmeling’s clean 3-pointer glance off the rim at the end of regulation. Or to relive the 19 turnovers – a season-high for the Cougars by a bushel. Or to see the ball somehow not find its way to red-hot Derrick Low in the last three minutes. Or to watch himself have to pull a spent and deflated Kyle Weaver, the team’s transmission all year long, for the final 50 seconds after three turnovers and an ugly miss in close helped put the Cougs in a five-point hole.

In time, yes. Everything in time.

“You’ve got to try and grow from it and go on,” he said. “I hope it makes them hungry.

“A lot of good things have come their way. A lot of nice things have been said about me and my team – some of them deserving, some not. It’ll be time to get after it when the time is right. Let’s become a better ballclub next year.”

Bennett would never say this himself, but that’s not likely to happen without him.

So, Wazzu, don’t let it.

Yes, it has started already – well before this in fact. Bennett has only this remarkable 26-8 season in his resume and yet so arresting was it that his name is being dropped anywhere a coach has been dumped. At Minnesota, which axed Dan Monson way back in November. At Michigan, where on Saturday they ponied up $900,000 to say adios to Tommy Amaker.

But this is just the start of all the schools that will want to play footsy, whether it’s this year or next.

“He’s national coach of the year,” said WSU athletic director Jim Sterk of Bennett’s appeal. “He should be (wanted).”

But Sterk and Bennett are already planning to meet and rework his $350,000-a-year-plus-incentives contract. And when asked if he expected Bennett to return next year, Sterk nodded and said firmly, “Yes, I do.”

So does Bennett.

“I plan on being here,” he said. “I really do. I want to sit down with Jim. I’m not trying to be cute and give an answer that leaves people hanging. I’m numb right now. I so like these young men and the administration. It’s just time now that the season is done to rest a little bit and get my bearings. I like this place. It’s been good to me.”

It might seem strange – or incredible – to talk of a first-year head coach bailing before his second year, but as we’re very aware all the rules have been waived in college athletics. Utah zitzed Ray Giacoletti just two years removed from a Sweet Sixteen appearance. Indiana took on Kelvin Sampson about 10 minutes after he got Oklahoma put on probation. Tony Bennett has been identified as a rising star and there are athletic directors who can’t wait to money-whip him.

Put Sterk in that group, although there isn’t as much lucre in his lash.

The current buzz is about an e-mail campaign among Cougars alums that Sterk said has raised more than $250,000, in a five-year period, much from people who “haven’t done that before.”

The flipside is that there are schools out there with a single booster who would match that amount as quickly as he could draw his checkbook from its holster.

But this isn’t a one-sided proposition. If Bennett is indeed the square shooter he’s shown himself to be, he will be reasonable with Wazzu and fair to the players who have invested just as much in the program. He will respond to the enthusiasm the fans have shown – filling Friel Court to the brim four times and now adding their names to the season-ticket list for next year.

“He loves us players,” insisted junior Robbie Cowgill. “I know he loves Pullman and the fans and the support he’s had here. I can’t really see him turning this thing around and handing it to someone else.”

But for a program this long in exile, that’s nothing to be handled with a hope or a shrug.

Progress never is.

“I hope we play better basketball (next year),” Bennett said. “Does that mean we have the same record? Maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll be better. But if you want to play in this program and be a part of that, you’d better have this fighter program and that chip-on-your-shoulder mentality. Because that’s how we have to do it. If we ever think we’re better than others, that will be the downfall of Washington State basketball.”

Funny, he may not have been speaking strictly to the players.