PULLMAN – The Washington State Cougars will see 24 teams throughout the course of this basketball season – and 24 teams with significantly more talent than the one they saw Sunday afternoon in a preseason exhibition game.
New Hope Christian College, a small bible college from Eugene with an enrollment of 100, didn’t do much in the way of giving Ernie Kent’s 2018-19 team a true litmust test, but Sunday’s exhibition did help a new wave of Washington State basketball players adjust to a setting they’ll spend plenty of time in over the next four months and the Cougars looked comfortable enough in their first live action at Beasley Coliseum, thumping the Deacons 138-63.