WSU men’s basketball Head Coach Ernie Kent is in a different situation than a year ago. Last season, Kent was handed a schedule that featured one exhibition game and seven of the first 10 regular season games away from Beasley Coliseum.

However, Kent has now received the chance of putting together a schedule he believes can benefit his team as he enters his second year as the Cougar men’s basketball head coach. This includes adding two exhibition games before the regular season approaches on Nov. 13. The Cougars conclude their preseason Friday against Pacific-Ore. in Bohler Gym at 6:00 p.m.

“All that is orchestrated to get us rolling, get our confidence, get us in rhythm and hopefully get us winning games to keep us moving versus being out on the road with a young new team and getting your brains beat out somewhere that doesn’t make sense to me,” Kent said. “I’m hoping the exhibition games will allow this team to feel the crowd, feel the energy in the building, but the biggest thing is gaining confidence.”

After defeating Lewis-Clark State by seven points last Friday in the first exhibition game, Kent expects his team to play faster in the second exhibition game against Pacific-Ore.

“We didn’t think like we were as fast as we can play (in that first exhibition game),” Kent said. “What we’ll do this week in practice is crank up the tempo even more so because with our numbers we just feel like we can get out and run and wear teams down and make the fatigue factor a big plus for us because we have so much depth on this team.”

This means it will be WSU junior point guard Charles Callison’s responsibility to make sure the ball is moving faster. Kent stressed how important it is for Callison to work at becoming one of the fastest point guards on the team in order to keep WSU junior guard Ike Iroegbu on the wing.

“The tape will allow him (Callison) to understand that (the speed),” Kent said. “When I talk about us getting faster a lot of it has to do with point guard play because they have the ball so much and that ball has to get up and down that court.”

Callison started at the point guard position in Friday’s exhibition game and shot 5 of 7 from the field and dished three assists. Though he’s only played one game in Kent’s system, Callison is already comfortable at running the up-tempo offense.

“I’m very comfortable because basically my whole life I’ve been playing fast,” Callison said. “I’ve been with coaches who want to play fast, get up and down very fast.”

The first year Cougar point guard added the team must limit its turnovers and also pick up the defense heading into Friday’s exhibition game.

“We need to clean up our turnovers and our defense because we let the team come back and we shouldn’t have let them come back so we just got to keep up the pedal to the metal,” Callison said.

WSU redshirt junior guard Que Johnson is another player who scored in double figures in the Cougars’ exhibition game win last weekend. Johnson tallied 11 points on 3 of 6 shooting. When asked about his shot selection, Johnson responded humbly that winning is all that matters to him.

“It was just the situation of the game,” Johnson said. “If I shoot more I shoot more, if I shoot less I shoot less. As long as we win, that’s my goal.”

The Michigan native spent most of last season trying to master Kent’s system and admitted it was a struggle for him to pick it up at first. He averaged 6.1 points, one assist and 2.3 rebounds last season. Having a year in the system under his belt now is a relief, Johnson said.

“It’s definitely good because it takes a while to get used to (adjusting to a system),” Johnson said. “Especially a system like this, so it’s good to have another year under Coach Kent.”

Tip-off against Pacific-Ore is set for 6:00 p.m. in Bohler Gym. This game will not be televised and is free to the public.