By just about any measure, Ernie Kent's first season as head coach at Washington State was a successful one. Not only did he improve both the overall and conference win totals from the previous year, he did it with a pleasing uptempo style of play that put a little bit of fun back in WSU hoops for the first time in years.
The team was immediately better, the sort of thing you expect when you hire a high-priced coach.
But while 2014-2015 was good relative to expectations, Kent wasn't hired to win 13 games, and he wasn't hired to finish 8th in the conference.