Cougars’ schedule toughens
The Cougars are two games into their 2004-05 basketball season, and unfortunately for them, the easy part of the schedule is already in the rearview mirror.
With home wins over Montana State and Georgia Southern in hand, Washington State now embarks on a hellacious non-conference schedule that will take Dick Bennett and his team all over the country.
Of the team’s next seven games, six are on the road and the lone home matchup comes against a ranked Gonzaga squad.
The traveling show kicks off at 10 a.m. PST today with a game in Manhattan, Kan., against Kansas State.
“We have a really tough stretch coming up: at Kansas State, at Idaho and then we go to Oklahoma State,” Bennett said. “It’s kind of a murderer’s row, but this is where we will either fish or cut bait. I expect we’ll keep fishing. Maybe we won’t catch anything, but we’ll learn to fish.”
For half the Cougars roster, it’ll be their first time in unfamiliar waters as a college basketball player, and for them this first road trip could be a greater-than-usual roadblock. WSU also sports six seniors on the roster, but at times in the first two games the freshmen have been more impressive on the floor. Now, however, Bennett will probably need his seniors to show leadership and help get the freshmen adjusted to the new surroundings.
“It’s going to be a challenge, but we look at every game as a challenge. We’re up for it,” said forward Chris Schlatter, one of those seniors. “We just have to go in there and play our game, try to make a statement about what we can be.”
Kansas State doesn’t pose as great a threat as fellow Big 12 member Oklahoma State, a Final Four team last year. But the Wildcats have also started their season 2-0, with home wins over North Dakota State and Denver.
The Wildcats are spearheaded by senior forward Jeremiah Massey, who has led the team in points and rebounds in both games, averaging 18 and 9.5. But it’s another player on the Kansas State roster who will look more familiar in the Palouse.
Six-foot-5 guard Fred Peete is the team’s second-leading scorer and rebounder — and a graduate of Pullman High School. In his lone year playing for the Greyhounds, Peete scored more than 27 points a game on the way to the school’s 23-4 record and second-place finish in the State 2A tournament.
This season, Peete has played more than 34 minutes a game, tops on the team, and is the only Wildcat other than Massey in double figures.
Some coaches would shriek at the notion of going on the road so much. Bennett has said it’s not advantageous, but this was the schedule his Cougars needed to take on to get guaranteed home games in Pullman down the road.
And for the hard-nosed head coach, going into someone else’s building has always been a test he’s enjoyed taking.
“I like it. I love going into hostile arenas,” he said. “That has always brought out the best in me. Now, I don’t know if my players feel that way. But I loved it, especially when I was at Green Bay. We would go into these houses, and I enjoyed it. Hopefully these guys, at least they will get to play in front of some real intense crowds.”