Washington State athletic director Pat Chun had seen enough, acting swiftly in firing Ernie Kent less than 24 hours after the Cougars’ humiliating 84-51 loss to Oregon in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament.

In doing so, Chun obligated WSU to pay Kent more than $4 million in severance pay to walk out the door, per the terms of his lucrative contract extension ($1.4 million for each of the 3 seasons remaining on his contract).

As far as Chun is concerned, though, it was money well spent.

“Yes, we owe Ernie three more years under his contract but when you look at our ticket sales, we’re down 60 percent from the peak of the (Tony) Bennett days,” Chun said. “Heck, we’re down 50 percent from the peak of the Bone days, which was primarily with Tony’s players.

“There is always a cost (to firing a coach). There is a cost for action and there’s a cost for inaction. We made the decision the cost of inaction was going to be higher than the cost of action. We have to get our basketball program (back on track) and make sure it’s doing what it needs to do. There are a lot of things that went into (the decision).”

Chun said WSU’s lack of success is one reason the Pac-12 has struggled to put teams into the NCAA Tournament. While most Power 6 conferences have at least six or seven teams participating in March Madness, the Pac-12 has just three.

“Our league is only going to be as strong as the weakest link,” Chun said. “I’m not saying our expectation should be to get to the NCAA Tournament every year, but we have to do our part to make sure our basketball product continues to be strong in the Pac-12.”

Chun outlined four reasons for firing Kent during his weekly appearance on the ‘Cougs in 60’ program hosted by Derek Deis.

1. Negative Experience For Players: In short, WSU didn’t win enough. Kent failed to win more than 13 games in any of his five seasons and the Cougars finished 11th int e pac-12 in his final two campaigns.

“Our student athletes have four years to have a transformative experience and our job is to make sure we help transform them and allow them to be the best they can be,” Chun said. “Ernie did a great job off the court in trying to develop young people, but what was going on wasn’t showing dividends on the basketball court. Our guys want to win.

Chun insisted the lack of winning wasn’t due to a shortage of talent, pointing to the presence of Pac-12 leading scorer Robert Franks and Pac-12 Freshman of the Year contender C.J. Elleby on the 2018-19 roster.

“I struggle with people saying we have a talent issue,” Chun said. “If we had finished at least .500, Robo (Franks) is probably Pac-12 Player of the Year and C.J. is Freshmen of the Year. Talent is not our issue. For whatever reason, we were underperforming on the court. So, it’s time for a new voice and new leadership.”

Whoever is named the new coach likely won't have 6-foot-9 forward Jeff Pollard on the 2019-20 roster as the rising senior has reportedly entered his name into the NCAA transfer portal as a graduate transfer.

2. Erosion of the Hoops Program: Chun acknowledged that WSU’s men’s basketball program has been sliding backwards since Tony Bennett left for Virginia a decade ago. The last two coaches – Ken Bone and Kent – have failed to generate any momentum in the win column. Under Kent, numerous players transferred from the Cougars program, a sign of problems both in recruiting and the locker room.

“This dates back to before Ernie got here, but with Ernie we were averaging about 11-and-a-half wins per year overall,” Chun said. “Transfers are a part of Division I men’s basketball. Almost 60 percent of our (hoop signees) have transferred. Had we kept status quo, we would have probably been around 11 wins next year and 60 percent of our players would have transferred.”

3. Student Apathy: The Washington State campus has more than 20,000 students. Unfortunately, only a small percentage attended a men’s basketball game this past season. Chun wants the student body to get excited again about the hoops program and going to games at Beasley Coliseum.

“We have the largest freshman class in school history, but we could not program them to want to come to Washington State basketball games,” Chun said. “We them at football, volleyball and soccer games. We have to get our students to want to come to basketball games.”

4. Finances: The dwindling attendance over the past several seasons means WSU, unlike some schools, is making less and less money at men’s basketball. Chun hopes, of course, a new coach will reignite enthusiasm for the program and result in greater attendance.

“It was never a matter of ‘if’, it was always a matter of ‘when’,” Chun said. “After the 2017-18 season, we had a large enough sample size to know the program wasn’t trending in the correct direction. We had hope because of the quality of recruits coming in with C.J. and others.”