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WSU Men's Basketball

Ernie Kent hires Ed Haskins as new WSU assistant coach

Washington State head coach Ernie Kent received an extra year on his contract. (Young Kwak / AP)
By Jacob Thorpe jacobt@spokesman.com(509) 710-8070

PULLMAN – Ernie Kent injected some westside recruiting muscle into the Washington State basketball program on Monday, naming former Garfield High (Seattle) coach Ed Haskins as his newest assistant coach.

Garfield is a regular producer of Pac-12 talent. This year Haskins-coached four-star guards Daejon Davis and Jaylen Nowell signed with Stanford and Washington, respectively. Four-star forward J’Raan Brooks is a junior at Garfield and will certainly be one of Haskins’ first calls in his new capacity as a WSU coach.

Haskins, 44, attended WSU in the early-90s before graduating from Eastern Washington and his brother, Aaron, played on two NCAA Tournament teams for George Raveling.

“I am extremely grateful to Coach Kent for the opportunity he’s afford me to fulfill a lifelong dream,” Haskins said in a press release. “At this point he renewed that passion for Cougar basketball when we sat down and he talked about his vision for where he hopes to take the program. To be a part of that is monumental. He can coach and I believe we’ll turn the whole program, town and Pac-12 around.”

Kent still has an assistant coaching spot to fill. Longtime assistants Greg Graham and Silvey Dominguez left the program last month.

Kent annnounced the hire during athletic director Bill Moos’ weekly radio show on KXLY in Spokane.

“I needed him in this program is not only because he is an outstanding basketball mind,” Kent told Moos. “But the mentoring I saw him do firsthand at Garfield. That I think is a huge plus to have him in our program.”

Kent has emphasized in-state players in recent recruiting cycles, landing the 2015 and 2016 WIAA 4A State Players of the Year in Viont’e Daniels (Federal Way) and Malachi Flynn (Bellarmine Prep), respectively.

Haskins was the head coach at Garfield for the last nine years and athletic director for the last seven. He was named the Tacoma News Tribune’s 2016 Coach of the Year, the 2015 Seattle Metro League Coach of the Year and the 2009 and 2012 KingCo Conference Coach of the Year.

In 2014 Hopkins led Garfield to the 4A State Championship and in 2015 they repeated with the 2015 State Championships. His 213-34 record at Garfield gives him the highest winning-percentage (86.2) in school history.