WSU Basketball Recruiting: Ernie Kent Pulls First JC Commit with Aaron Cheatum

Ernie Kent and the Washington State Cougars are hitting the recruiting trail hard and furious right now, they may have the most work to do in the Pac-12 Conference this late signing period. The work load got a little bit lighter yesterday when Kent pulled his first commitment of the season.

Versatile forward Aaron Cheatum will be heading to WSU in a three years to play two situation, coming in as a true junior. He chooses the Cougars over offers from Tulane, Idaho, UCF, Morehead State, Cal State Bakersfield and Miami (OH).

Cheatum is 6’7, 240 lbs and averaged some pretty good numbers at East Los Angeles CC this past Fall; 15 pts, 9 rebounds and 2.5 assists. You can already see with these numbers that Kent requires a little more offensive firepower from his forwards than did Ken Bone. Recently Kent mentioned that the best way to teach scoring is to recruit “kids who already know how to shoot (the ball)”.

Cheatum adds to the 2014 class, which now stands at two. Garfield’s Tremaine Isabell is the other new Cougar. Isabell is a true PG (something the Cougs have sorely lacked these last couple years, though Ike Iroegbu is growing into the position) and Cheatum will probably convert to some sort of SF/PF hybrid for Kent’s offense.

The Cougs have three more spots to fill.