Tuesdays with Ken Bone
COUGARS
FROM PULLMAN -- As usual, we have our summary of Ken Bone's Tuesday teleconference. However, other duties kept us from listening in on his segment on the Pac-12 coaches call. Read on.
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First, a personnel update -- DaVonte Lacy has a sprained left ankle and didn't practice Monday, though Bone said he expects Lacy to play on Thursday against Oregon State. It's "questionable" whether Lacy will practice today. "There’s a chance he won’t (play)," Bone said. "I remember saying that about Mike Ladd back when he hurt his thumb twice and I didn’t think it was quite as serious as it ended up being. There’s always a chance he might not play but my guess is he will." Lacy turned the ankle when he stepped on Josh Smith's foot late in Saturday's loss to UCLA. ... As folks begin to watch, talk and write about Brock Motum more and more, I'm curious as to how the Cougars plan to handle his minutes going forward. Motum played the entire game against UCLA and faded a bit in the second half. So I asked Bone what he thought. He said Motum's playing time wasn't much of a concern against UCLA because of the way the game played out -- about midway through the second half, for example, Bone said he noted the teams had a combined seven timeouts remaining, and with a couple of media timeouts and plenty of free throws coming up, he said he wasn't too worried about leaving Motum out there. But he did say that it's been a concern in other games this season. "We need him on the court as much as possible," Bone said. "If he can be out there and we can manage the game to where he can be out there, then we need to do that, because he’s definitely one of our better players." Bone said it's no different than with Reggie Moore -- who averages 32.3 minutes per game, just a shade more than Motum -- at the point guard position. WSU doesn't have many other options there, so Moore gets the bulk of the minutes. ... Bone said he's not sure teams will try to zone WSU more to deny Motum the ball inside, as UCLA did. He also pointed out that they were still able to get the ball to Motum, but that he simply lost some 1-on-1 matchups against Josh Smith. ... Bone said Ladd came out of the weekend OK, and had another good practice on Monday. I asked if he's lost some confidence in his jump shot due to the thumb injury. Bone conceded that yes, he probably has, to some extent, at least, but noted that he did make a 3-pointer against the Bruins. "He’s proven over the years he can shoot the 3, but he hasn’t proven it with a bad thumb yet." ... Bone said he liked that WSU made its free throws and came up with some big plays down the stretch in the Cougars' first game against Oregon State, but felt they were too sloppy and didn't execute very well. ... Bone named Cal's Jorge Gutierrez, and Tony Wroten and Terrence Ross of Washington as his Pac-12 Player of the Year candidates. ... Bone was asked if he might sign any players during the late signing period, which begins April 11. He said there's always a chance, but that "right now, we have not made any offers to anybody that will be available this spring."
That's all we have for today.
Christian Caple can be reached at christianc@spokesman.com. Twitter: @ChristianCaple