Following the loss to Gonzaga Wednesday, WSU men’s basketball Head Coach Ernie Kent sent a text message to his junior forward Josh Hawkinson to talk about toughness and whether he should have called more plays involving the forward in the game.

It was clear Hawkinson got Kent’s message, as the Shoreline native tallied a season high of 24 points on 10-11 shooting from the field in the Cougars’ 91-67 win over Portland State Sunday afternoon. He also recorded his third double-double of the season.

“I think the last game was one of my worst games ever,” Hawkinson said. “Kind of let our team down defensively and so I knew that was the mentality that I had to have coming into the rest of the games. That game helped me mentally prepare for what it’s going to be like facing really good fours.”

Kent said it getting Hawkinson involved was one of the Cougars’ top priorities against the Vikings.

“Josh responded well and it was nice to see him respond,” Kent said. “We cleaned up some stuff in practice and really focused on getting him open and getting him the ball in better position to score.”

Besides calling Hawkinson’s number more in the game against PSU, Kent also put an emphasis on getting his bench involved. All 12 players that suited up played double-digit minutes against PSU. WSU sophomore guard Derrien King was the only player to not suit up for the Cougars. The Cougar bench combined for a total of 32 points in the win.

“Conor (Clifford, junior center), Valentine (Izundu, redshirt junior center), Robert Franks (freshman forward), Viont’e Daniels (freshman guard) – all of those guys can help us if we can get them their confidence and get them on their games,” Kent said. “I still think we can go and develop (the bench) even more so because you still have not yet seen the real Renard Suggs (junior guard). For whatever reason, he’s really struggling right now. So in a game like this, it gives you an opportunity to bring some guys off the bench and get their confidence.”

At times during the game, Kent benched his entire starting five and had WSU sophomore guard Ny Redding leading a unit that included four first-year players. Kent said Redding handled the job well.

“Well he needed it, that’s why I had him out there so he could be point guard and do a better job of what I call his point guard leadership and that’s exactly what we told him,” Kent said. “‘You run this team, get guys shots and don’t worry about yourself. We can get yours a little bit later in the game.’ I thought he did a really good job of it.”

The Cougars also put more emphasis on their perimeter defense against Portland State. After giving up seven 3-pointers to Gonzaga, WSU held Portland State to just 2-13 from behind the arc.

“Coming from the Gonzaga game we knew we had to step up and play better defense so that was one of our main focuses was to lock up the ball and when it’s on the perimeter to just get your man,” WSU junior guard Ike Iroegbu said.

The Cougars will play their first road game of the season against the Idaho Vandals (5-4 pending tonight’s game @ USC) at 6 p.m. Thursday in Moscow.

“It’s been real nice playing at home because this is of course where we play and this is our gym and I think it’ll be a lot of fun to experience a road game even though it’s seven miles down the road,” Iroegbu said. “It’s a rivalry game and we’re just very excited for that game against Idaho.”