The date was December 4, 2004, nearly a decade ago to the day.

The Washington State men’s basketball team went into Stillwater, Okla. And lost to the Oklahoma State Cowboys 81-29. The score marked one of the biggest blowouts in the NCAA that year, but the game marked a turning point in the landscape of WSU hoops.

Just a couple days later the Cougs would lose a highly competitive game to the Gonzaga Bulldogs 54-52.

That Cougar team featured the names of freshmen Derrick Low, Robbie Cowgill, Kyle Weaver, and Daven Harmeling – the very core group of players that would lead WSU down its best stretch in program history just a few years later. No one knew it at the time, but these names would live on in Cougar infamy.

This season, after a 27-point loss to TCU and some other losses to teams that schools like WSU should never lose to, it seems that the program has come full circle, and Ernie Kent is left to try and do what Dick Bennett did ten years ago – make Cougar basketball relevant again.

One can’t help but notice the similarities in the circumstances between the 2004 – 2005 Cougar basketball team and the one this year. Bennett wanted to instill a tough “pack” defense that held opponents to low shooting percentages. He wanted to slow the tempo on offense and limit possessions for other teams.

Kent wants to speed up the tempo on offense from what Ken Bone ran a year ago, while acknowledging that what will set WSU apart from the rest of the conference is playing tough defense. Like Bennett, Kent has an incredibly young team lacking the experience needed to execute the system. Six of the 15 players on the roster were not in the program last year. Who knows if the Ny Redding, Jackie Davis, and Trevor Dunbar class will achieve any type of success that Low, Cowgill and Weaver did.

When Ken Bone took over for Tony Bennett before the 2009 – 2010 season, he wanted to speed up the tempo, but after some unfortunate recruiting circumstances, he was left having to go back to a half – court offense, which led to some painfully unentertaining games over the past few seasons. It’s one thing to keep a game low scoring because of good defense, but it’s another when shots don’t seem to come close to the soft spot of the rim.

Bone recognized he didn’t have the players he needed to run an up – tempo system. That’s not to say that those players were bad, but he adapted to their style accordingly. The experienced players on the roster right now are Bones’ players who are used to a slower style. The new Kent recruits simply lack experience at the Division – 1 level to run any type of system.

Time will tell if they develop and Cougar basketball becomes relevant again. For now fans are just left with the inevitable losses to the Idaho’s of the world.