PULLMAN – When Ernie Kent was named the new temporary basketball coach at Washington State – basketball coaches are always temporary at Wazzu – one thought came to mind: He’s too old to have the energy to recruit.

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Boise State basketball coach Leon Rice turned down the Washington State job to remain at BSU, sources told ESPN and The Idaho Statesman newspaper of Boise. Rice and the Cougars have refused comment. It was learned Friday that Rice had interviewed with WSU athletic director Bill Moos.

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Leon Rice, Boise State basketball coach, interviewed for the vacant Washington State head coaching job, and WSU president Elson Floyd told the school’s Board of Regents Friday that an offer has been made to a candidate, Sportspressnw.com has learned.

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Ken Bone was fired Tuesday as basketball coach at Washington State. In related news, Christmas falls on Dec. 25. Thanksgiving is set for the last Thursday in November. And Gonzaga will make a quick exit from the NCAA tournament.

WSU basketball fans only wish they could be fortunate enough to watch their beloved Cougars lose in the NCAA tournament. Lord knows the Cougars have lost just about everywhere else under Bone.

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LAS VEGAS – Bill Hogan is an athletic director by trade, but no Las Vegas showgirl has ever flashed more impressive moves than Hogan when he danced around questions about the future of his basketball coach Thursday night.

Speculation is ripe that Cameron Dollar, hired by Hogan five years ago when Seattle University returned to the NCAA Division I ranks, may have coached his final game with the Redhawks.

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LAS VEGAS – Washington State lost a basketball game Wednesday. As expected.The Cougars might lose a basketball coach as soon as today. As expected.

“I have not been told a thing about my future at Washington State,” coach Ken Bone said after the underdog Cougars gave Stanford a good run before bowing 74-63 late Wednesday night in the opening round of the Pac-12 Tournament.

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LAS VEGAS – As with most visitors to this gambling mecca, the Washington Huskies left town as losers. It remains to be seen if their next opportunity to be winners comes next week or next season.

The Huskies find themselves begging for a shot at the NIT – the ugly stepchild of college basketball – after wasting big-time second-half performances by freshmen Nigel Williams-Goss and Darin Johnson in a 67-61 loss to Utah on Wednesday afternoon at the Pac-12 Tournament.

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LAS VEGAS – Welcome to Sin City, where sleep is deemed optional.

Of course, when seven college conference basketball tournaments (four men’s, three women’s) are being held in town during the same week, sufficient shut-eye is an elusive goal amid the collective din of tens of thousands of hoops-happy revelers.

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The USC Trojans, playing their fourth game in as many days Sunday, appeared to be running on fumes as they struggled to keep up with the Oregon State Beavers in the first half of the championship game at the Pac-12 women’s basketball tournament.

Cynthia Cooper, the hyper-intense coach of the Trojans, decided the best way to deal with her players’ weary legs was to apply full-court pressure in the second half.

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Women’s basketball fans laughed at June Daugherty when she predicted prior to the season that her long-suffering Washington State Cougars would play in the post-season this year. Not only had the Cougars not advanced to the post-season since 1991, but they had not finished with a winning record since 1995-96.

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Washington State stunned plenty of women’s basketball followers with a victory over 20^th-ranked  California Friday night, but the least surprised person in KeyArena seemed to be Bears coach Lindsay Gottlieb.

“Washington State earned every bit of that win,” Gottlieb said after the seventh-seeded Cougars knocked off the second-seeded, 20^th-ranked Bears 91-83 in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Conference Tournament.

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It was basketball on Red Bull. A track meet in high tops. A jailbreak with ponytails.

Say what you will about women’s basketball – and a great many sports fans will never have much good to say about it, unfortunately – but the Washington State-Oregon score-a-thon Thursday night ranks among the most entertaining events to grace KeyArena since a carpetbagger stole the Sonics and moved them to a patch of dirt in the middle of nowhere.

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Most Washington State basketball fans know Cougars guard Tia Presley only as an athlete. Fearless, hard-nosed, relentless. It would be safe to say that most fans would be surprised to learn about the “other” Tia Presley.

“I’m pretty girly,” Presley says, a huge grin pasted beneath mischievous brown eyes. “I like to do my hair.

“I like to sit at home and watch Netflix. I’ll get hooked on shows and find myself staying up until 4 in the morning with practice at 7. I’m a big online shopper, too.”

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Ken Bone, a Seattle native, returns to his hometown on Friday. Perhaps that will make it easier for him to catch a breath after being left hanging all season.

Washington State athletic director Bill Moos, a man of a million words, has said nothing that would indicate Bone’s coaching stint in Pullman is anything but going, going, gone at season’s end. Moos’ deafening silence has been accompanied by the ever-increasing roar of WSU fans demanding a new basketball coach.

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PULLMAN – The Washington Huskies came to the Palouse to bury the Bone. Instead, they granted Ken Bone a stay of execution.

The Washington State Cougars quieted – however temporarily -- the increasing clamor of fans calling for Bone’s head by giving Cougars fans what they cherish most: A win over the Huskies.

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PULLMAN – The young men on the Washington State basketball team seem like an unusually mature lot.

Opponents praise the Cougars for playing hard, even in lopsided defeats. Players meet with the media after losses – never a pleasant task – and answer questions directly and politely. Coach Ken Bone frequently praises their effort and camaraderie.

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In Las Vegas, it has been said, one can place a bet on anything. The fact that a man once cashed in on a $100,000 bet by wearing 38C breast implants for a year would seem to support that statement. That bet rates a tad stranger than any of the Super Bowl wagers we’ve heard about this year. But Las Vegas bookmaker Bovada.com is doing its best to keep things interesting.

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The Washington State University athletic department reduced its annual operating deficit by more than $2 million during the past fiscal year, but athletic director Bill Moos said Thursday he anticipates a record deficit that may exceed $10 million for the fiscal year that ends June 30.

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PULLMAN – Last time Washington State defeated Washington in women’s basketball, most of the current Cougars were wearing diapers. Eighteen years later, the Cougars were wearing broad smiles after their remarkable 36-game losing streak to the Huskies came to a nail-biting end Tuesday evening at Beasley Coliseum.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The Washington State Cougars waited 10 years to play in a bowl game. The Cougars finally cracked the secret bowl code Saturday afternoon at the Gildan New Mexico Bowl, but WSU players, coaches and fans might need another 10 years to recover from the disaster.

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