WSU men plan to maintain winning ways

PULLMAN — It was a Friday night and classes had just started at Washington State. Freshman basketball players were no doubt wondering what the weekend would hold on their new college campus.

That was the evening Taylor Rochestie told them to bring their sleeping bags to the gym. Seems that a couple of the rookies had cut a couple of corners, been late once or twice, and now it was time for the veterans to establish how the Cougars did things.

Thus, Late Night with the Leader. They played a little Texas Hold 'Em. Everybody got a chance to talk. Freshmen said only a little, the more veteran players said a little more, the seniors waxed longest on what the program meant to them.

And they stayed the night in the practice gym.

"Nobody's been late since," says redshirt freshman swingman Abe Lodwick.

Rochestie insists it was more convivial than disciplinary, but whatever it was, it's an apt metaphor for WSU basketball, 2008-09. A proven group of seniors, led by Rochestie, will try to urge along one of the most gifted freshman classes in WSU history with the collective goal of pointing the Cougars back to the NCAA tournament.

No doubt who the lead dog is in this race.

"Taylor is just a natural leader," Lodwick said. "The feeling I get from him is, 'I'm a senior, and it's not going to be on my watch that we're going to have a bad season.' That attitude really rubs off on the rest of the guys."

The Cougars lost a heavy chunk of the nucleus that brought coach Tony Bennett a 52-17 record in his first two years. Kyle Weaver went off to Seattle's arch-nemesis, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Derrick Low is playing in Australia and forward Robbie Cowgill is back at WSU, working for a campus ministry.

But WSU has enough parts back to warrant scrutiny as a team that can trouble a lot of teams in the Pac-10, perhaps even get back to the promised land of March Madness. There's Rochestie at point guard, big man Aron Baynes, a steady if unspectacular forward in Caleb Forrest and a capable perimeter shooter in Daven Harmeling. Baynes' practice time has been limited by a sprained foot.

To that, Bennett and his staff added a six-man scholarship-freshman class, of which the earliest help appears likely to come from 6-foot-6 swingman Klay Thompson, whose stock went through the roof after he signed last November; Ferris High product DeAngelo Casto; and Oregonian guard Mike Harthun.

"We love 'em," Rochestie said with a laugh, referring to the newcomers. "The best part is, they're still young enough to look up to us, even though they have a lot more talent."

Some of the indoctrination of the youngsters began in Sunnyside Park in Pullman, on the Hill. Use that reference around WSU basketball, and there will be immediate recognition.

It's 110 yards, and it really doesn't look like that much. But walk it, and breathing starts to come hard. It's especially daunting the way WSU does it in preseason conditioning: Twice a week they run it, starting with six repetitions and escalating to 16. You get 90 seconds for the round trip to use however you like.

"Oh, gosh, that thing is a beast," said Casto.

"It's mental," said Rochestie, "just like our defense."

Meanwhile, when Bennett said, "We're going to take our lumps," nobody is quite sure whether he's sandbagging or keen enough to realize the magnitude of what WSU lost. Up the road at Gonzaga, coach Mark Few said, "I think they might be Lou Holtzin' a little."

But in Low, WSU had a source of regular outside offense and playmaking. Weaver was a multitasker good enough to dominate O.J. Mayo last February. Cowgill teamed with Baynes to shut down Notre Dame All-American Luke Harangody and help Washington State hold its own against North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough.

"Coming to practice every day, you wouldn't know we were in the Sweet 16 last year," Lodwick said. "The coaches don't talk about it and the players don't rest on that. They're playing with something to prove. They really don't want the program to dip back into obscurity."

It doesn't appear that will happen soon. Bennett, 2007 national coach of the year in several quarters, was the No. 1 coaching quarry of several high-profile programs in the offseason, but elected to stay in Pullman and now makes $1 million a year, the highest-paid employee in school history.

He welcomes a freshman class headlined by Thompson, son of Mychal Thompson, the NBA's No. 1 draft pick in 1978. Lodwick calls his teammate "just a natural on offense and a really good defender, too. I don't think people give him much credit for that."

The much-traveled Casto is one reason why Rochestie says, in reference to the freshman class, "We noticed it right at the start, playing summer games. Those routine layups and shots were getting blocked."

Almost forgotten is a player who splices the young and old, Serbian swingman Nik Koprivica. It's worth remembering that he was starting two years ago as a true freshman before felled by a knee injury.

What seems to be intact is the work ethic and exquisite chemistry that carried the Cougars to three NCAA-tournament wins the past two years, or half their total in history.

"I've never spent this much time in the gym before," Rochestie said. "I've always been a gym rat, but it's kind of a new mentality. Girlfriend's upset; I'm never at the house.

"But when I look around and see Daven Harmeling and Aron Baynes and Caleb Forrest, we see it in each other's eyes. This is our last chance together. It seems like whenever we were walking out of the gym all spring and summer, we were saying, 'Let's come back in two hours.' And then [again] two hours from then.

"We're saying, 'One more time, one more time.' "

Their fans, growing accustomed to the good times, are saying it right along with them.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com