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LOCATION: Pullman, WA
CONFERENCE: Pacific-10
LAST SEASON: 10-19
CONFERENCE RECORD: 4-14 (10th)
STARTERS LOST/RETURNING: 0/5
NICKNAME: Cougars
COLORS: Crimson & Gray
HOMECOURT: Friel Court (12,058)
COACH: Paul Graham (North Texas '74)
record at school First year
career record First year
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ASSISTANTS: Randall Rickey (Ouachita Baptist '83)
Gary Stewart (LaVerne '84)
Chris Croft (Southern Mississippi '95)
TEAM WINS: (last 5 years) 18-17-13-10-10
RPI (last 5 years) 70-68-144-184-137
1998-99 FINISH: No conference tournament.
ESPN.com Clubhouse
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Paul Graham has heard all the warnings about coaching at Washington State. In a nutshell, here's his response to that: "I was a high school swim coach, and I couldn't swim." Graham, 48, knows he is in a sink or swim business, and the obstacles that come with coaching at Pullman, Wash., don't much concern him. "Every job is tough. You think Mike Krzyzewski's job ain't tough?" Graham said. "Hey, George Raveling and Kelvin Sampson won here. There's only 300-something Division I jobs in the country, and I've got one. "You can sit here and say it's tough, or you can get out and make it the best job you can. People ask me how Pullman is, and I say, 'It's great, because I'm the boss.' " Graham, who spent the previous seven seasons as an assistant to Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State, said he decided quickly that this job has one edge over Stillwater, Okla. "The biggest thing is the damned weather is a lot better," he said. The immediate forecast for the WSU program is stormy, with change on the way. The Cougars finished last in the Pac-10 under Kevin Eastman a year ago, and it's a good news/bad news proposition that five players who were at least part-time starters return from that club.
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Blue Ribbon Analysis |
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BACKCOURT C BENCH/DEPTH C
FRONTCOURT D INTANGIBLES C
Coach Paul Graham said his first months on the job have been just as Eddie Sutton promised him they would be. "There's been so many demands on your time," he said. "I'm so excited and so confused about where to start." Where to start, indeed. If Graham is a list-maker, he has no doubt gone through a couple dozen notepads by now. The checklist of "To do" items with this program is exhaustive. The Cougars were last in the Pac-10 in scoring defense last year and were the only team in the conference among the bottom half statistically in both offense and defense. Their shooting percentage was worst in the league, and so was their field-goal percentage defense. Rebounding? Dead last. Assists? Ditto. So Graham must wonder sometimes whether having five returning starters is really that much of a blessing. In the short run, his goal will be to implement his system, get the Cougars to play hard and hit the recruiting trail with a vengeance. Progress may be hard to see this season, because WSU seems destined to finish at the bottom of the Pac-10 again. There just isn't enough talent, experience and size. Graham may eventually make this a good job. He is unafraid of the assignment, and he has faced tougher challenges. But there may be days this winter he doesn't particularly feel like discussing the topic. |
Graham said all bets are off, as the program starts anew. "We have to change the mindset," Graham said. "I don't know what they had because I wasn't here. I don't want to sound like I'm Moses, but I know what I've been around. Coach Sutton is the best in the country. "These guys have to maximize their potential, be in the best mental, physical and spiritual condition they can be, and play their butts off. Losing has to hurt." There may be a bit of pain before the Cougars begin to win on a regular basis, but Graham has tried to convince his players they don't have to accept the status quo. "I tell them, 'You didn't come to Washington State to be a loser.' They want to win," he said. "Any time there's change, there's apprehension, optimism, curiosity. I asked them to first of all get in the boat and ride with us. Nothing stays the same. You either get better or you get worse. "Eddie Sutton has had 13 other (former assistants) who have gone on and used the same principles. It worked for them. I know what it takes to win. Let's try it and see what happens." Graham is ready for a long, hard battle. Things never have come easily to him. He never knew his father, and he was raised by an aunt and his grandmother in a tough section of Kansas City after his mother died when he was 10. After running track at North Texas, Graham began his coaching career at Kimball High School in Dallas, thanks to a recommendation from Hayden Fry, who was at the time athletic director at North Texas. That led to an assistant's job at Southern Methodist, and later he rejoined coach Dave Bliss at New Mexico. In 1992 he went to work for Sutton at Oklahoma State, replacing good friend Rob Evans, who left and became head coach at Ole Miss and now runs the program at Arizona State. Graham applied for head coaching positions around the country, including four different times at North Texas. His alma mater rejected him each time. "The system is unbalanced, it is corrupt," Graham told The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash. "I think I was qualified long ago to be a head coach, but there is no prescription that you follow that if you do all these things you will become a head coach. "If I had put in this much time and effort as a vice president at ITT, I'd be chairman of the board right now. College basketball is not that way." Sutton believes Graham is no different than another of his ex-assistants, Tubby Smith, who finally was hired as a head coach and found success at Tulsa and Kentucky. "I saw in Paul those same qualities," Sutton said. "A person of high energy who had never soured on the system even though he had been passed over all those times for who knows what reasons." Graham inherits a team largely recruited by Eastman to play a different system. The Cougars of recent years utilized a close-to-the-vest approach, rarely running and pressing. "I want to play good pressure man defense, get transition buckets, take the three-point shot," Graham said. "Halfcourt defenses in this league are so good; the transition is a key. We want to run and make defense the backbone of our team." The square pegs Graham will try to fit into those round holes include three players who averaged double-figure scoring last season. None of them has guaranteed jobs, the coach said. The Cougars' most veteran player is 6-7 senior wing Chris Crosby (13.1 ppg, 3.7 rpg, .412 FG, .387 3 PT, .843 FT), who scored 38 points in a game against Idaho last year, but did not start the final 11 games of the season. "Chris Crosby can be a very good basketball player," Graham said. "He has to shoot more free throws and quit shooting so many jump shots." In fact, Crosby attempted 150 three-point shots, compared to 89 free throws. Senior guard Jan-Michael Thomas (14.1 ppg, 2.1 apg, .399 FG, .405 3 PT, .837 FT), 6-2, had an even more dramatic disparity, with 220 attempts from beyond the arc, only 92 from the free-throw line. Also back is 6-6 junior forward Eddie Miller (10.9 ppg, 5.4 rpg, .536 FG, .746 FT), who is undersized but effective as an interior player. Sophomore Mike Bush (6.6 ppg, 3.1 rpg, .409 FG, .303 3 PT, .662 FT) is a 6-5 wing who started 19 games, and 5-10 senior Blake Pengelly (3.7 ppg, 3.0 apg, .361 FG, .338 3 PT, .478 FT) started 19 games at the point. The team's tallest player and only true center is 6-10 junior Brian Stewart (3.5 ppg, 1.8 rpg, .531 FG, .644 FT), who played in just 18 games, never started and averaged fewer than 10 minutes per outing. He is very much a work in progress. The Cougars hope to get a contribution from Milton Riley, a 6-8, 178-pound forward who was redshirted as a freshman last year. Graham will complement those returning players with an incoming class of four newcomers, including three freshmen. Noting that "everyone has a chance," Graham added that freshmen typically have more to learn than they believe. "Freshmen don't understand how hard you've got to play all the time," he said. "There are demands on their time; they're away from home for the first time. It's a big adjustment." The adjustment will be somewhat less for one of them_6-0 point guard Nick Graham, the coach's son. The younger Graham (13.8 ppg, 3.7 apg, 3.0 rpg, 2.0 spg, .420 3 PT, Stillwater HS/Stillwater, Okla.) is quick and athletic. "He knows how to play_he's a coach's son," Paul Graham said. "He's been in the locker room at the Final Four. He understands." The only other player signed in the spring after Graham was hired is 6-7, 225-pound combination forward Tyrone Evans (14 ppg, 8 rpg, Garden City CC/Garden City, Kan.). "Tyrone is a very athletic, quick player," Graham said. "He's just the type of strong, physical player who will give us the toughness we need to compete in this league." Eastman signed three high school prospects in the early period, but only two of them survived academic scrutiny to reach the WSU campus. Failing to make the grade was 6-2 point guard Marquis Poole (20 ppg, 8 apg, 5 rpg, Centennial HS/Compton, Calif.), who was expected to push for a starting job. On campus are 6-9, 220-pound forward Bryan Whitehead and 6-2 combo guard David Adams. Whitehead (11.3 ppg, 7.2 rpg, Mount Vernon HS/Mount Vernon, Wash.) wears size 17 shoes and comes from the same high school that produced former WSU star Mark Hendrickson. Whitehead helped his team to a 25-2 record as a junior. Adams (Lincoln HS/Tacoma, Wash.) is an excellent three-point shooter who also has point-guard skills. He turned down academic scholarship offers from Ivy League schools to play for the Cougars. Two late additions to the squad are 6-10, 232-pound transfer center Jay Locklier and 6-3 shooting guard Mike Malloy. Locklier, a junior who will sit out this season, transferred from Miami of Ohio, where he averaged 0.4 points and 0.7 rebounds in 18 games last season. A two-time all-state player in North Carolina at Charlotte Christian High School, Locklier will have two years of eligibility at WSU. Malloy, a recruited walk-on, averaged 20.9 points, 8.0 assists and 7.0 rebounds last year at San Diego High School. Rounding out the roster is seldom-used 5-11 junior walk-on guard Cedric Clark (0.0 ppg, 0.5 rpg in four games).
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