‘New’ look for Cougars

PULLMAN – When the Washington State men’s basketball team jogs onto the Beasley Coliseum court Friday afternoon at 5 to open practice, it won’t be your father’s Cougars.

Heck, it won’t even be your big brother’s Cougars.

This 2008-09 edition of WSU basketball will feature, like last season, a core group of seniors. But unlike last year’s 26-9 Sweet Sixteen team, which had four other upperclassmen in the rotation, there is but one junior and one sophomore on the roster.

There are, however, nine freshmen.

In fact, with sophomore Fabian Boeke having lost his first year to NCAA sanction, there are 10 Cougars who have yet to play a minute of college basketball.

“It means were going to have to rely heavily on the leadership and experience of the five guys, four seniors and one junior, who have played,” said coach Tony Bennett, who enters his third season at WSU’s helm with a 52-17 record.

“Out of those 10 kids, there’s got to be, in my opinion, three to six of them (who) have to be in our rotation, ready to play.”

But young kids means more time spent teaching and, probably, more mistakes.

“Either Mylanta or Grecian Formula might be our team sponsor this year,” Bennett joked.

“We’ve done more this preseason, this fall, in teaching, whereas the last couple years it has been a little more playing. … For 10 of these guys – the redshirts have some experience – our concepts are new to them.”

One of the five players with game experience is point guard Taylor Rochestie, who last year led the Pac-10 in assist/turnover ratio (2.81), was second in assists (4.74 per game), fourth in 3-point shooting percentage (43.4) and seventh in free-throw percentage (80.4).

All that, though, came with seniors Kyle Weaver, Derrick Low and Robbie Cowgill in the lineup. They’re gone and the program is going through a sea change, which Rochestie welcomes.

“I’m looking forward to the process,” Rochestie said. “It’s fun right now, especially with the new guys, seeing the birth of an up-and-coming team.”

It’s been an adjustment already, with the freshmen going through their first fall workouts, which includes the infamous Pullman hill run.

“Some of them really struggled with it,” Rochestie said.

Still, he sees a reward coming.

“It’s exciting when someone who has way more talent than you is looking up to you and listening to what you’re saying,” Rochestie said, laughing. “The freshman class, as talented as they are, they kind of blew us away with how eager they were to learn and to be a part of something bigger than themselves.”

Talent will help ease the loss of Dick Bennett’s program-changing class, but WSU’s philosophy is built around team play, something that takes time to develop.

“I would love to have my dad coach for a couple years and I’ll take this group over when they’re junior and seniors,” Tony said, laughing. “We can maybe negotiate that deal again. With the new golf course, we might have some leverage.

“What I learned from him,” he added, turning serious, “is the new group has to know what your program stands for. There’s a toughness factor and some building blocks you can’t shortcut.”

Bennett and his staff will take care of the concepts. But it’s Rochestie and the rest of the upperclassmen who will have to lead.

“Our natural leaders were our juniors last year,” said Bennett, mentioning forward Daven Harmeling and center Aron Baynes along with Rochestie. “Caleb (Forrest) and Nik (Koprivica), too. Caleb leads by his gutsy play and Nik was captain of his Serbian team (in the summer).

“The difference between these freshmen and the other freshmen (the Low-Weaver group) everything was new to the program at that time,” Bennett added. “With these freshmen, they have our five veterans. They’ve been in the program, most of them, for four years or so. We hope we can rely on them. But, we know we’re going to have to recycle and rebuild. We’re going to be as competitive as we can.”