Cougars Open Kent Era in Lone Star State

COUGARS OPEN KENT ERA AT THE LONE STAR STATE: Washington State University first-year men’s basketball head coach, Ernie Kent, will take his Cougars on the road to open the 2014-15 season, beginning with a trip to El Paso, Texas to take on UTEP, Friday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. PT/8 p.m. MT. 
• WSU then travels to Fort Worth, Texas to face TCU, Monday, Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. PT/7 p.m. CT.
• The game at UTEP will not be televised, but will be webcast at www.utepathletics.com.
• Monday’s game at TCU will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest Plus as Brian Estridge (Play-by-Play) and John Denton (Color Analyst) have the call.

ERNIE KENT ENTERS FIRST SEASON WITH THE COUGARS:
• Veteran head coach and former Fox Sports and Pac-12 Networks basketball analyst was named the 18th head coach in WSU men’s basketball history, March 31, 2014, replacing Ken Bone, who served as the Cougar head coach for five seasons.
• Kent comes to Pullman with a 325-254 (.561) mark as a head coach, having spent six seasons at the helm for Saint Mary’s in Moraga, Calif., and 13 at Oregon.
• In his 13 years at Oregon, Kent compiled a 235-174 (.575) record and a 109-125 (.466) conference mark.
• His 109 conference wins rank 17th most in Pac-12 history (including Pacific-8 and Pacific-10 Conferences).
• While at Oregon, Kent led the Ducks to seven postseason appearances, including five NCAA Tournament Appearances (2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008) as well as a Pac-10 regular-season (2002) and two conference tournament (2003, 2007) titles.

COUGARS VERSUS MINERS:
• Friday marks the fifth all-time meeting between Washington State and UTEP, and the second-straight season the two teams will face each other.
• Last season the Cougars fell to the Miners, 64-51 at Pullman, the first meeting between the two teams in Pullman.
•  The teams are tied in the series with two wins apiece, as UTEP is riding a two-game winning streak, adding a win on Dec. 28, 1998 at UTEP.
• The first meeting came while UTEP was known as Texas Western, Dec. 19, 1964, a 67-63 WSU victory the Sun Devil Classic in Tempe, Ariz.
• For more series information, please see page 1 of today’s notes, for last season’s box score, please see page 4 of today’s notes.
• Last season UTEP went 23-11 overall and 12-4 in Conference USA before falling in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) to Fresno State.

COUGARS VERSUS HORNED FROGS:
• Monday’s game is the fourth all-time meeting between Washington State and TCU and the second at Fort Worth.
• Last season TCU visited Pullman and walked away with a 64-62 victory.
• TCU also won the first meeting in the series, an 86-83 victory at Fort Worth, Nov. 30, 2002, while WSU got revenge the following season with a 73-52 win, Dec. 6, 2003.
• Washington State’s two losses in the series have come by a combined 5 points.
• Like the Cougars, the Horned Frogs struggled last season, finishing with a 9-22 record and 0-18 Big 12 Conference mark.

WSU IN SEASON OPENERS:
• Washington State is opening its season outside of the state of Washington for the first time since opening the 2006-07 season in Milwaukee, Wis. for the John Thompson Foundation Classic, playing its first game of the tournament against Alabama-Birmingham in a neutral-site game.
• WSU won that game, 71-60, beginning a season that brought the Cougars back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 13 years.
• The last time the Cougars had in a true road game outside the state of Washington came Nov. 19, 1999 at Nevada, an 80-55 loss.
• WSU has played just five season opening road games (not including neutral-site games) outside the Pacific Northwest, holding a 4-1 mark in those games.
• The Cougars’ last win in a true road game outside the state of Washington came at Fresno State, Nov. 23, 1985, a 57-54 win.
• The last time WSU opened the season outside of Pullman was an 89-81 loss at Gonzaga, Nov. 14, 2011.
• Overall, WSU is 92-21 in season openers and 40-11 in season openers outside of Pullman (including tournaments and neutral-site games).

FAMILIAR FACES:
• The head coaches at both UTEP and TCU used to be head coaches in the Pacific-10 Conference where they faced current Cougar and former Oregon Duck coach, Ernie Kent.
• UTEP’s fifth-year head coach, Tim Floyd, coached at USC for four seasons, from 2006-07 until the 2009-10 season, where he led his teams to three-straight 20-win seasons and three-straight NCAA Tournament appearances.
• Third-year TCU head coach, Trent Johnson, coached against Kent for four seasons while at the helm for Stanford from the 2004-05 season until 2007-08.
• In that time, Johnson led the Cardinal to three NCAA Tournament appearances, including a 28-win season in 2007-08.

ABOUT  THE COUGARS:
• The Cougars finished 10-21 overall last season and 3-15 in Pac-12 play, finishing 11th.
• WSU returns nine letterwinners including three starters from last year’s squad.
• Among those is senior guard DaVonté Lacy who led the team with 19.4 points per game a year ago.
• His scoring average would have been the second-best in Pac-12 play, but he missed eight of the team’s 31 games due to injury, resulting in him playing just 74.2 percent of the team’s games, rather than the 75 percent required to rank in the league. 
• Lacy is joined by fellow seniors Dexter Kernich-Drew and Jordan Railey, who are the other two returning starters from last season.
• A guard, Kernich-Drew averaged just 6.3 points per game as a redshirt junior, but showed flashes of greatness, including a 24-point performance against Colorado, Jan. 8, in which he made a career-high 6 3-pointers.
• A center, Railey changed his uniform number from 20 to 4, and is looking to put a dent in WSU’s career blocks records.
• Redshirt sophomore Que Johnson is another Cougar that had big games last season, as he led Washington State in scoring in six of the eight games that Lacy missed in 2013-14, including two 21-point performances.
• Johnson was third on the team in scoring with 9.5 points per game.
• Junior forward Junior Longrus also returns for WSU after starting seven games as a sophomore, as do guards Dominic Ballard and Ike Iroegbu and forwards Brett Boese and Josh Hawkinson.
• WSU boasts six newcomers, the most since Tony Bennett brought in seven newcomers for the 2008-09 season.
• Among those newcomers are freshmen guards Jackie Davis, Trevor Dunbar and Ny Redding, and juniors Marcus Graham (guard), Aaron Cheatum (forward) and Valentine Izundu (center). 
• Izundu will redshirt due to NCAA rules after transferring from Houston.

LACY MARKING UP RECORD BOOKS:
• Senior DaVonté Lacy is making his mark on the WSU record books.
• In the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament, Lacy became the 34th Cougar to reach 1,000 career points.
• Lacy scored 25 points and now has 1,023 career points.
• He is the ninth-fastest Cougar to reach the milestone as he accomplished the feat in 85 games.
• If Lacy were to average the same amount of points as last season (19.4) and stays healthy and plays at least 31 games, he would finish his career with at least 1,624 points, which would put him fourth in WSU’s record books.
• If he sticks with his career average of 12.0 ppg, he will finish with 1,395 points which would put him at 11th in the WSU career record books.
• Lacy is also climbing up the record books for career  3-pointers made and is on pace for the record, currently in sole possession of eighth place with 181 made 3-pointers after passing Marcus Moore (2001-04).
• He is currently 21 away from Chris Crosby (1997-2000) in seventh place with 202.
• Lacy is just 61 3-pointers away from tying Klay Thompson for the school record...if he were to stay healthy during his senior season, Lacy would need to average just under 2 made 3-pointers per game to reach the record.
• Lacy is tied for 10th with Klay Thompson in the WSU career record books with a .390 3-point field goal percentage.

BLOCK PARTIES:
• In just his second season with the Cougars, seven-foot senior Jordan Railey is on pace to move into WSU’s career top-20 for blocked shots as he currently has 30.
• Junior Junior Longrus is just two blocked shots shy of entering the top-20 with 43 blocks in two seasons.
• With a 0.6 career blocks per game average, Longrus is on pace to finish with 85 blocked shots in his career, which would put him at 12th on WSU’s all-time list.

HAWKINSON LIFTS COUGS  TO EXHIBITION WIN:
• Sophomore forward Josh Hawkinson averaged just 1.2 points and 1.6 rebounds per game last year as a freshman, but scored 24 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in WSU’s exhibition win over Azusa Pacific, Friday, Nov. 7.
• Hawkinson was 10-for-11 from the field and 2-for-2 from 3-point range, while 16 of his boards came on the defensive end.
• Senior DaVonté Lacy added 22 points for the Cougars, 17 in the second half.
• Four newcomers saw action and three of them scored (freshmen Ny Redding - 3 points and Trevor Dunbar - 1 point, junior Aaron Cheatum - 2 points).
• The Cougars shot .613 (19-for-31) from the field and .450 (9-for-20) from 3-point range.
• Redshirt sophomore Que Johnson added 10 points on 2-for-3 shooting from 3-point range.