M. basketball: Back to basics

There are only so many holes of golf in Florida. For Dick
Bennett, they weren’t enough.

“You have to be equipped for retirement ““ all I
liked to do is golf, and I did my share of that,” the
60-year-old coach said. “Something was missing.”

That something was coaching college basketball ““ not only
Bennett’s career, but his passion. Three years of putting
greens and drivers couldn’t quell his desire to be part of
the college game, and so, when Washington State sought him out in
hopes of rebuilding their ailing basketball program, Bennett
couldn’t turn the offer down.

So, with the clubs packed, he relocated to snowy Pullman, Wash.,
to teach the Cougars a thing or two about his style of
play. Dubbed “Bennett Ball,” his focus on the
fundamentals of the game is his plan to bring a WSU team out of a
streak of low-points: three out of the last five seasons the
Cougars haven’t won more than two Pac-10 games and their last
winning season was in 1995. When Bennett arrives in Pauley Pavilion
Thursday night, he will face another coach hired to rebuild a
program in UCLA’s Ben Howland.

But Bennett has a reputation among coaches who are brought in to
rebuild teams: He’s good at it. Really good.

At his first coaching position, at University of Wisconsin,
Stevens Point, he took a team that was 16-36 two seasons before he
arrived in 1976 to a 25-5 mark when he left in 1985.

He continued at Wisconsin-Green Bay, where he took another
struggling team to the NCAA tournament after five seasons, and
twice more before moving to Wisconsin in 1995. In only five
seasons, the Badgers reached the Big Dance three times and the
Final Four in 2000.

Bennett knew rebuilding the team at Washington State
wasn’t going to be easy. He just wasn’t used to doing
it with empty bleachers.

“In Wisconsin there was interest even if we were
losing,” Bennett said of the 24 seasons he coached in his
home state. “Here interest was way off. I had to bring a new
program on the floor and a new game off it. It represents the
biggest challenge for me “¦ especially since I’m not
quite as resilient as I once was.”

But there isn’t much stopping Bennett. Currently the
Cougars are 3-6 in the Pac-10 ““ ahead of Arizona State and
Oregon State ““ and 9-10 overall. Not surprisingly, interest
in Cougar basketball has risen in Pullman. More importantly,
Bennett says he sees evidence of improvement and has hopes for next
year with four or five new recruits coming in to invigorate the
program.

Evidence of success, though, doesn’t make the rebuilding
process any easier. Bennett’s arrival marked a clean
slate for Washington State players, who were unaccustomed to his
benchmark slow, deliberate defense. But like he’s done with
all his teams, that’s where it all starts.

“If you’re limited you can get more out of your
defense than your offense,” Bennett said. “I try to
appeal to that, and teach an approach to be competitive so we could
have a chance to play.”

Some onlookers didn’t believe in his style. But slowly
““ maybe just a little slower than his game ““
Bennett’s plan is emerging as very promising.

Although the Cougars fell to No. 9 Arizona last weekend, 61-57,
they were only five points short of victory and held the Wildcats
““ who average 88 points a game ““ to their lowest point
total of this season.

“(Bennett’s) style of play will be conducive to them
having success,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said of the imminent
turnaround at Washington State. “He has a proven system;
he’s a proven coach.”

It might take a little longer for Bennett to prove himself in
Pullman, but he’s far from done. As he puts it, “You
can see the light on the other side.” He has signed a
multi-year contract with the Cougars, but is taking his coaching
career one year at a time.

And the golf courses?

“They’ll always be there,” he said.
“This won’t.”