Washington State Basketball: Can Cougs Save Ken Bone in Second Half?

Feb. 2, 2013; Pullman, WA, USA; Washington State Cougars head coach Ken Bone looks on during a game against the Arizona Wildcats during the second half at the Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum. The Wildcats beat the Cougars by a final score of 79-65. Mandatory Credit: James Snook-USA TODAY Sports

Washington State has lots of basketball and personel issues to deal with on the floor right now. Lack of a true point guard, lack of overall talent in the depth of their team, lack of elite athleticism. It’s all led to a lot of difficult-to-digest losses in games in which it looked like the Cougs should have, could have won. At the halfway mark, the Cougs are 11-11 (2-7) and look to be on their way to their first true losing season under coach Ken Bone.

Cougar fans have begun the rallying cry for a new coach and every game the chant seems to be picking up steam. The obvious solution to any bad team is to change the coach, but there needs to be some sort of logic to calling for someone’s head. We do believe that the logic is there and with Bill Moos’ obvious propensity for creating a winning program on the rise, not a regressing one, it’s very possible that even with 3 years on CKB’s contract the move to a new coach will be made. 

The only thing I can think of that would save him is a winning record (5-4) and a progressing team in the second half of conference play. So we took a look at the schedule to see if we could find 5 wins:

• @USC 
• @UCLA
• Oregon State
• Oregon
• @Arizona State
• @Arizona
• @Washington
• UCLA
• USC

Nope, I don’t see it. 5 games on the road and the only 2 possible wins I see there are @USC and @Washington. At home the only possible wins are USC and Oregon State. Simply put, with no Utah and no Colorado on the second half, there’s no way our team pulls out those four wins, let alone another.

The team seems to be regressing and after another blown lead against Arizona State and then a subsequent blowout loss to Arizona, it just looks hopeless. Rest assured, Ken Bone is squarely on the hot-seat and likely won’t be around to see another Pac-12 season of college basketball, save for a miracle.