BTO Exclusive: No Bones About It

BTO Exclusive: No Bones About It

Washington State changes its look (and its style) with Ken Bone replacing Tony Bennett as head coach. 

By VICTORIA SUN
Basketball Times Online

LOS ANGELES – During the first few days of practice, Washington State head coach Ken Bone noticed something a bit odd whenever his players took possession of the ball.
Instead of making long outlet passes off rebounds or at least jogging up the court once the ball was in-bounded, the Cougars would leisurely walk the ball up court.
"That was the biggest thing, it was almost surprising," Bone said at Pac-10 media day on Thursday. "It's like, 'We have the ball, let's go!' They were like, 'What's the hurry, coach?'
"So, there's been a little bit of a change there."
Ridding the Cougars of such habits acquired under former head coach Tony Bennett, who left Washington State for Virginia, has been one of Bone's tasks since arriving in Pullman, Wash.
Under the methodical Bennett, the Cougars ranked last in the Pac-10 and 314th out of all Division I teams by averaging 59.2 points per game last season. The previous season, Washington State ranked 9th in the Pac-10 and 221st nationally with 66.4 ppg and in Bennett's first season, the Cougars were 8th in the league and 208th in the nation with 66.9 ppg.
In 18 of the 33 games Washington State played last season, the Cougars didn't score more than 60 points.
"We want to play faster, we want to advance the ball quicker than they've done in the past, but we don't want to send mixed signals to where we're pushing the ball up as quickly as possible and shooting it just to get a shot off," said Bone, who spent the previous four seasons at Portland State. "So we want to advance it, see if there's a great opportunity and if there's not, we want to run a half-court game."
Bone led the Vikings to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in 2008 and 2009.
Portland State led the Big Sky Conference in scoring with 73.2 ppg last season and 73.9 ppg the year before to rank 80th and 77th in the nation, respectively.
Bone's different approach on offense has re-energized the team according to guard Nikola Koprivica, the lone senior on the team.
"We've changed the style of play, definitely," said Koprivica, who averaged 3.1 ppg and 2.4 rebounds per game last season. "We're not going to be slow-paced anymore.
"As a player you get excited about (the change). Everybody likes to shoot so I think it's really exciting for me and the whole team just to get adjusted to a new style. I think we'll be fun to watch."
In particular, it will be interesting to see the numbers super sophomore Klay Thompson can put up while playing for Bone.
Thompson averaged 12.5 ppg as a freshman and is the team's leading returning scorer. He was named to the all-Pac-10 freshman team and scored a career-high 28 points against Arizona State. Thompson, son of former Los Angeles Lakers forward Mychal Thompson, led the Cougars in scoring 11 times, shot a team-best 41.2 percent from behind the arc and was second in rebounds with 4.2 per game.
Bone caught a break when Thompson didn't even flirt with the idea of transferring despite the coaching change.
"Ohhhh yea, it would have been very difficult to lose a player of his caliber and a person of his caliber," Bone said. "He's a great, great kid.
"We're glad he's here."
Bone is just as happy that he landed his first major Division I coaching job in the Northwest.
He played two seasons at Division II Seattle Pacific and went on to compile a 253-97 record there in 12 seasons as head coach.
When Lorenzo Romar became the head coach at Washington in 2002, he hired Bone as an assistant. The two would often play in pickup games at local gyms when Bone played at Seattle Pacific and Romar played at Washington.
"When I came to Washington, he kept saying, can I talk to you about maybe an assistant's position," Romar said. "I said, I don't need to talk to you. Because I knew I was going to hire him.
"He possesses everything that I've always wanted to work with in. Those same qualities have made him a successful head coach."
Bone spent three seasons with Romar before taking over at Portland State during the 2005-06 season.
After Bennett bolted for UVA, Bone's success as a head coach and familiarity with the area made him an attractive choice.
"He loves the Northwest," Romar said. "He's not someone who's going to be out looking for other jobs.
"He wants to be there. He's going to take pride in that program."
Though the Cougars played in the NIT last season after finishing 17-16 overall and 8-10 in the Pac-10 to finish 7th, Bone is respectful of the job Bennett did in leading Washington State to consecutive trips to the Big Dance in 2007 and 20008.
Like his father Dick, who was considered a defensive guru for guiding Wisconsin to lead the Big Ten in scoring defense four of the five seasons he was there (1995-'00) and molding Washington State into a defensive juggernaut before Tony took over in 2006, what Tony lacked in offensive creativity, he made up for on the defensive end.
The Cougars tied for first or led the Pac-10 in scoring defense in each of Bennett's three seasons, and ranked third nationally during the 2007-08 season when the team reached the Sweet 16 and first in the nation last year.
"Their system was obviously very, very slow and it was very effective," Bone said.
Koprivica wasn't always thrilled with the system Bennett employed, but noted that it worked.
"It was tough, but, you know it was a different style than everybody else plays so it gave us some good results," Koprivica said. "So it was pretty good.
"I'm a coachable guy so whatever coach wants, you've got to do that. It's (Playing slow is) not like something that everyone wants to do, but for success sometimes you've got to do things that you're not like crazy about."
Bone will definitely need to adjust to his personnel now that the Cougars have lost three of their top four scorers from last season and top rebounder in Australian center Aron Baynes.
In the future he plans to scour the nation for players and continue mining Australia for talent.
For now, Washington State was picked to finish 8th in the preseason media poll, finishing ahead of USC and Stanford.
"I like being the underdog, personally," Koprivica said. "I think people are going to try to be relaxed playing against us, but I think we will surprise people this year."

2009-10 Pac-10 Men's Basketball Media Poll
1. California (25), 350
2. Washington (7), 330
3. UCLA (5), 302
4. Arizona, 221
5. Oregon State, 218
6. Oregon, 175
7. Arizona State, 144
8. Washington State, 123
9. USC, 109
10. Stanford, 63
(first place votes in parentheses)


Photo Credit: http://wsucougars.cstv.com