Washington State University men’s basketball looking for successful season
PULLMAN, Wash. — Founded in 1902, Washington State University’s basketball team, the Cougars, competes in the PAC-12 Conference of the NCAA Division I. The team plays their home games at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, a town in the far south-eastern corner of Washington State. The Cougars are notable in U.S. sports history for being the first team in the Pacific Athletic Conference to be coached by an African American, George Ravelin, who led the team from 1972-1983. During his time as coach, the Cougars regularly drew large crowds of fans during the late 70’s and early 80’s. After he left, and through most of the 90’s, the attendance for Cougars games decreased year after year. The team’s performance also declined.
After a nearly two-decade-long slump, in the mid-2000s the team started to get traction and in the 2006 -07 season they dominated both in the PAC Conference with a record of 13 wins and five loses, and in the Division overall with 26 wins and only eight losses. This tied the team’s record for the most wins in a single season. The 2007-08 season was also very successful ending this season with 26 wins and nine losses overall in their Division. The coach that led the team to victory was Tony Bennett, among the best college basketball coaches and winner of dozens of awards recognizing his success and talent. In terms of the ratio of wins to losses, Tony Bennett has the highest in the team’s history at almost 68% (69 wins to only 33 losses). Unfortunately, he left the team in 2009 to coach for the University of Virginia, where he still coaches today.
Currently, the Cougars’ head coach is Kyle Smith, who joined the team in 2019. Before joining the Cougars, he was the head coach at the University of San Francisco, and before that he was at Columbia University. Smith is known for relying on data and the use of analytics to make predictions and decisions about various aspects of the team, and overall strategy. It appears to be working because since becoming the head coach there has been a marked increase in the team’s performance. For example, shortly after joining the Cougars he led the team to their first win in the conference postseason tournament in over 10 years (around about the time that Tony Bennett left the team). Unsurprisingly, the university leadership recently announced that they had decided to extend his contract through to the end of 2027.
This season’s (2021-2022) roster for each position in the team:
Forward
● #0 – Efe Abogidi / 6’10’’ / 225 lbs – Delta State, Nigeria
● #11 – DJ Rodman / 6’6’’ / 215 lbs – Newport Beach, California
● #13 – Carlos Rosario / 6’7’’ / 180 lbs – Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
● #14 – Matt Dewolf / 6’9’’ / 235 lbs – Barrington, Rhode Island
● #23 – Andrej Jakimovski – 6’8’’ / 215 lbs – Kriva Palanka, North Macedonia
● #32 – Tony Miller / 6’6’’ / 215 lbs – Woodinville, Washington
● #35 – Mouhamed Gueye / 6’11’’ / 210 lbs – Dakar, Senegal
Guard
● #2 – Tyrell Roberts / 5’11’’ / 175 lbs – Sacramento, California
● #3 – Jefferson Koulibaly / 6’3’’ / 185 lbs – Montreal, Canada
● #4 – Myles Rice / 6’2’’ / 175 lbs – Columbia, South Carolina
● #5 – TJ Bamba / 6’5’’ / 215 lbs – Bronx, New York
● #12 – Michael Flowers / 6’1’’ / 190 lbs – Southfield, Michigan
● #22 – Ryan Rapp / 6’5’’ / 189 lbs – Melbourne, Australia
● #24 – Noah Williams / 6’5’’ / 195 lbs – Seattle, Washington
● #33 – Will Burghardt / 5’11’’ / 185 lbs – Longview, Washington
Center
● #21 – Dishon Jackson / 6’10’’ / 250 lbs – Oakland, California
This is an unedited user writing submission. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Best Version Media or its employees.
