Comments on: WHERE ARE THEY NOW: Rodrigo de la Fuente

By: Nuss

Nuss — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:23:30 +0000

You should be astonished. This rarely happens anywhere — a football parallel might be Rutgers of the past couple of years. It’s easy to use the “they built it the right way” line, but there are lots of guys who try to build it the right way at perennial losers, and they never go anywhere. I think there has to be a certain amount of luck involved with the great coaching and the fact that luck actually bestowed itself on our collective Cougar brow … well, perhaps that’s the most astonishing thing of all!

By: MikeR

MikeR — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:15:52 +0000

The program was in total shambles when Eastman left. Graham didn’t stand a chance because he kept trying to turn academically ineligable criminals into Pac-10 basketball players. And, I seem to remember watching his game plans look like something a group of fourth graders would run.

100 percent correct. If Eastman burnt the program to the ground (which he did), Graham peed on the ashes, dumped them in an Indian burial ground, and then lit them on fire again.

There’s not a day that goes by where I’m not completely astonished at the transformation of this program from where it was in the late ’90s and early ’00s. I remember joyfully storming the court in 2000 when we beat Cal to get to 1-14 in Pac-10 play. Now, we have a top 10 team that’s a legit threat to win the Pac-10 and play deep into March. Go figure.

By: Jo~Jo

Jo~Jo — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:01:11 +0000

By: Nuss

Nuss — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:37:45 +0000

I say “shockingly awful” in this context: He took a program that Kelvin Sampson had stocked with talent and built into a winner and absolutely ran it into the ground with a total inability to recruit to Pullman — Paul Graham’s failures were due in large part to the program being virtually devoid of Pac-10 talent. (Secondary to that was Graham’s condescending and dictatorial nature.)

The guy could coach, no doubt — Eastman’s NIT teams, with the talent left over from the previous regime, were evidence of that, as is the fact that he’s now an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics. And he was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet, as he always made time for an interview with me.

But the depths this program sank to can largely be attributed to him. His inability to build on the foundation Sampson provided was, in mind, “shocking.”

By: CougNut

CougNut — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:27:31 +0000

“Eastman’s few decent recruits in his shockingly awful tenure at WSU”, now I’m no Eastman fan, but history tells us that he was not really shockingly awful as a coach.

Eastman’s had NIT teams in 1995-96 and his 1996-97 team was 18-11 and defeated Gonzaga 92-73 in the first round of the NIT in Pullman. WSU was eliminated from the tournament with an 82-73 loss to Nebraska in Lincoln.

His five year record was 69-78 not good but hardly shockingly terrible.

By: Jo~Jo

Jo~Jo — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:00:15 +0000

Hey Nuss,

Where is J-Mike?