Conventional wisdom stated that there was no way the Washington State Cougars could afford to fire basketball coach Ernie Kent. He was owed $4.2 million guaranteed, and the athletic department budget is swimming in red.
Less than 24 hours after WSU was bounced from the Pac-12 tournament in typical unceremonious fashion, athletics director Pat Chun thumbed his nose at conventional wisdom and sent Ernie packing. (To much rejoicing.)
The question a lot of people have is ... how? I have a couple of ideas.
While everyone was focusing on the cost of firing Kent, I think a lot of people weren’t considering seriously enough the cost of not firing him.