WSU Men’s Basketball: OMG How Much More Ken Bone Must We Take?

Jan 26, 2014; Pullman, WA, USA; Washington State Cougars dance team pose for a photo against the Oregon Ducks at Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-USA TODAY Sports

So, after another near 30 point blowout in yet another crapshoot of a performance from our men’s basketball team, I’ve come to my wits-end. I mean really, how much more must we endure? This team has packed it in completely and as long as the head coach remains, well…

Thank God for the cheerleader photo above, or there wouldn’t have been any joy in this article… but even there, look at those empty seats! It’s completely laughable because nobody cares!

Ok you know all that (you’ve known since halfway through last season), so do I have a point? Yes, I do.

My point is; I care. I even care very much. It’s not too long ago that Washington State basketball was starting to hit its stride. Say what you will about this always being one of the terrible basketball schools in the West, one has to believe that in the new era of WSU athletics, it has to be better than this!

The time has come for Bill Moos to move on from Ken Bone. No, it cannot wait til the end of the season. It has to happen right now. Or at least as soon as possible. PLEASE!

We’re sick of the continued befuddlement and the same old “I don’t know what’s wrong” recap in post-game press conferences. Mike Leach that sucker! Say it straight so your team can have something to get emotional about; something like “we’re a bunch of lifeless corpses running around… also, we have no motivation and I don’t even know who wants to be here, but we’re going to find out”. Seemed to work out pretty well for a certain football coach.

Yes we, the fans, have grown deathly tired of watching this team be just flat terrible. Even when you know it’s coming, it gets old to watch them fail at whichever identity they’re trying to mask on any given possession, on either end of the floor. They haven’t really had one since this staff took over, an identity that is. Heck, it’s not even good pick-up rat-ball anymore. I’ve literally watched 60 year old professors shoot better at noon-ball than the Cougs have all season, outside of the occasional hot-streak by any single, random person at a time.

Curtis Allen can take over and it for sure won’t get any worse. But more importantly it can only get better. At this rate the team isn’t learning jack and the young players are just wasting valuable developmental time licking and pressing their stamps to mail it in. Then, they don’t even bother to go to the post office.

Ok, ok, I’m not helping, but seriously, bad habits have become commonplace right now. Case in point, Junior Longrus has become a mid-range jump shooter, DJ Shelton is still shooting the “J” (nope, don’t care if he makes a couple, in fact the team only becomes worse than normal when he thinks he’s a shooting guard) and none of the guards know that the words “attack the basket” or “dribble penetration” even exist.

Our team is completely lost and though it is a team effort in futility, only one individual must be blamed. The guys have quit on their head coach and you’d have to be oblivious to life not to see it. Forget the interest in the program, it’s been dead and Moos already knew that. Forget the contract nonsense, we all know Bone has to be paid and it makes no difference when we let him go home to calm his very shot nerves… and ours.

These kids need a new voice. They need something to get excited for when they come to practice. And the new coach for next season, whoever he would be, needs to see this team show some fire and athleticism so he can at least agree to come here and take on the massive project that lie ahead. There is some pretty good talent at guard after all, but heck if anybody can find it in the pile of broken wills that put on that Wazzu jersey every day.

Watching Cougar basketball is like eating your workout shoes for dinner at this moment, sweat and all. And of course it doesn’t help that our promising women’s team just got outscored by 51 to the Oregon schools on the road…