Give and Take: Q&A with WSU basketball coach Ernie Kent
QHow important is it for the program to beat Gonzaga?
A It’s not the way you just put it, which puts it in the light that we have to beat Gonzaga for our program to have an identity. That’s not it at all. For this program, in terms of my vision for the program, it’s to graduate student-athletes, it’s to have Beasley packed, it’s to be in the running for Pac-12 championships, it’s to be in postseason play.
It’s very similar to the vision we had at Oregon when we got the job there and it took us some time to build that program, to emulate those teams that are great in our conference and those teams that are great on your schedule.
Gonzaga is one of those teams where, again, Mark Few has been there how many years? And before that he was there as an assistant. The continuity is in place, the recruiting is in place, their identity is in place, their fans are in place. They are so far ahead of us in terms of continuity of their program that we are in a situation where we need to feel comfortable with who we are.
Q Is confidence something you can coach?
A Yes it is, because it’s no different than you raising your kids. And you have the opportunity to put your arms around them to give them confidence. And you do that with a lot of affirmations, you do that with a lot of patience and you do that with a lot of teaching… .
A lot of what we do in our basketball program is to wrap our arms around these young men and give them the opportunity that we’re in this together and have them grow internally.
A lot of them need to grow internally because of what they’ve been through in their lives, but at the end of the day the fact that they’re on a Division I campus, for some of them and what they’ve gone through in their personal lives, are already a success and need to empty their backpacks of lack of confidence and guilt, fear, shame, whatever, and let’s move forward.
We spend a lot of time talking about that every day, to get them where they need to be mentally before we even get to the floor to practice or play a game.
Q What is it that you’re missing to make this an Ernie Kent team?
A Continuity. It’s hard to jump into a program that’s been where Washington State has been the last two or three years. You’re not going to turn it overnight. Very similar to taking over at Saint Mary’s, similar to taking over at Oregon. It takes continuity, we need the continuity in place of the day-to-day that these players need to understand you need to go through to be successful. The day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month and year-to-year.
You need the recruiting in place, as well, you need the competitive nature of your teams. Scheduling is huge in your success at this level. There’s just a lot that needs to happen and be in place before you can say, “OK. Here’s Ernie Kent’s program, Ernie Kent’s team,” and we’re a ways away from that.
Q Do you have the facilities to win at WSU?
A Yes. And I say that because, again, I was at the ultimate school that understood the arms race when you talk about Oregon and the support of Phil and Penny Knight and everything they did for the University of Oregon.
And yet, in our basketball program there we did not start out at the top. We started out at the bottom in terms of facilities, and we went to an Elite Eight with those facilities before we put the arena blueprint into works.
So when I look at WSU compared to where we were at Oregon, we are far ahead. We didn’t have practice courts at Oregon. We didn’t have the two different locker rooms at Oregon.
We didn’t have our own personal strength coach that went with us everywhere at Oregon. We didn’t have a lot of that stuff when we built that program from the ground up, initially.
So when I look at the arms race and when I look at facilities, are we behind the other schools in the conference and the country? In some areas, yes, and in some areas, no. Do we have adequate facilities here, support here, to get it done here? You bet we do.