No, I don’t think that the remainder of this season will be a total washout of a rebuilding effort for the WSU men’s basketball team. I still believe that second-year Head Coach Ernie Kent has a moxie and charisma that can bring winning basketball to the Palouse in the next year or two the way he did at the University of Oregon. He took teams to the Elite Eight in 2002 and 2007, after all.

What I’m having a tough time grasping, however, is this overly proclaimed notion that Cougar basketball will have to “wait until next year” to make an impact in a loaded Pac-12 conference. Frankly, it is ridiculous to label having six newcomers on your roster as reasoning for scheduling by far the softest schedule in the Pac-12 and seemingly appearing incapable of winning a non-neutral sight road game.

Commentator Bill Walton said in the second half of the team’s 90-66 discombobulation against No. 18 Arizona Saturday, “This team has seven juniors on its roster. They will be a contender next year.”

But I thought Kent was dumbfounded at the Pac-12 Media Day in October when he heard that his team was picked to finish last in the conference in the preseason poll? Come to think of it, every time I listen to a presser of his, he puts on that happy-go-lucky grin and talks about how talented his squad is. It’s part of that polarizing presence a coach like himself has with the media.

Joah Hawkinson is about as reliable a double-double performer there is in division one hoops. Ike Iroegbu excels at finding guys in transition and finishing at the rim. I am curious to see how the stories of junior college transfers Conor Clifford, Charles Callison and Valentine Izundu turn out at the end of their senior years.

My point being, there is talent on this roster. Of the 13 players Kent has at his disposal, only two are first-timers to college basketball – freshman Robert Franks and Viont’e Daniels.

I cannot justify a loss to Idaho in December and an 84-73 road loss to a then-winless Arizona State team in conference play in a game that was not as close as the score may indicate. Yes, the Wildcats are among the country’s best and have now won 49 straight at the McKale Center, but adherence to the game’s fundamentals may or may not have kept the game within reach longer than the first 10 minutes of action.

WSU was up 13-10 on the Sun Devils at 13:52 in the first half Thursday. The team appeared to be in a good spot amid playing in a hostile environment. Hawkinson picking up his third foul midway through the first half did away with any of that. A 21-2 run by ASU put the score at 31-15 with 5:09 left in the half because no one appeared interested in doing anything else but dribble frantically up the court and take low percentage jump shots after not getting back on defense.

The Sun Devils cut to the basket at will, leading to trips to the foul line, layups and open three’s off missed rotations. The Cougs claim to be an up-tempo team that likes to push the pace and outscore opponents, but what does that say when they have 25 points at the half? Hawk having to sit for most of the action and scoring just three points certainly didn’t help, though it then becomes someone else’s role to pick up the slack, right?

Yet he still grinded even when the game was out of reach, finishing with 15 points and 12 boards. The scrappy spirit of this team is one of its characteristic that is aesthetically appealing. They outscored ASU 48-44 in the second half and went on a 10-0 run in the first 2:31 of the frame to pull within five, but the Devils responded with a rally of their own, like they did all game. Sure, you can nearly double your point tally from one half to the next, but you still have to defend.

It’s tough to operate a run-and-gun offense without consistent outside shooting. Maybe consider a relook of what resources are present to use instead of trying to force a new identity upon itself?

My take, bang down low with Hawk and Clifford and use the explosiveness of Iroegbu, Callison and Que Johnson to cut to the basket and finish or dump. A dribble-drive offense.

When a team is outgunned from a talent standpoint, it is unwise to try and combat this disparity by trying to beat them at their own game. ASU and Arizona like to play fast and are more efficient on offense, so rather than press the issue, dirty the game up and slow it down. Allow yourself more time to regroup on defense and keep the score within reach.

This past Friday, I watched the Cougar women’s basketball team rally from being down 13 points against No. 25 USC and come out of halftime with a 23-6 run to start the third quarter. They outscored the Trojans 42-23 in the second half, beating them at their own game with unprecedented energy displayed out of the break. The game was not just stolen, it was ran away with.

The women’s team then rallied from nine and 11 point deficits throughout Sunday’s game against an even stiffer foe in No. 17 UCLA to get off a potential game-tying shot at the buzzer before falling 75-73. They kept fighting through, and found a way to stay in it.

I bring this up because the Trojans were better than the Cougars on a physicality level, yet WSU found a sense of self-resilience after it appeared to be on its way to dropping its second consecutive game to a ranked opponent by double figures. There were multitudes of opportunities for the women’s team to mail it in and say, “you know what, it’s not our night,” Sunday. Playing with an inner-fire and focusing on what one can control, what one is good at will beat out talent.

The men’s team is far more hyped than the women’s squad, but could stand to take a lesson from the lady Cougars as it stares down a 1-4 mark in conference play thus far, a one-way ticket to the cellar. Figuring out an identity might just save their season like it did the women’s team last week.

A home stand this weekend with Utah and Colorado will be yet another uphill battle. There will not be another game the rest of the year in which WSU is favored.

So it’s time to get real, in a hurry, if something is to be made of this season other than a proverbial rebuilding effort. It isn’t an absence of talent holding this team back from taking the next step. It’s a confused and unclear identity.

There’s nowhere to go but up from here in this stretch of the season. While it is certainly plausible to believe skies will be bluer next fall that does not change the fact that there are restless fans and supporters of this program who are wondering what direction it is that the ship is going. They want to know who this team really is.