As far as Washington State athletic director Pat Chun is concerned, the time for fans to start supporting the Cougars’ surging men’s basketball team is NOW.

After sweeping the Arizona schools on the road this past weekend (first road sweep of ASU and UA since 2006-07; first weekend road sweep overall since 2008-09), WSU hosts Apple Cup series rival Washington Saturday at 5 p.m. PT at Beasley Coliseum.

Through 12 home games, WSU is averaging a paltry 2,120 fans per home game. Since Beasley’s seating capacity for basketball is 11,671, that means an average of more than 9,500 seats have been empty every home game.

Saturday, Chun wants to see most or all of those seats filled when the Cougars square off with the first-place Huskies in arguably the biggest game of Kent’s five-year tenure as head coach.

“We’re pushing our students hard and pushing the community to come out and support the Cougs,” Chun said Tuesday on the weekly ‘Cougs in 60’ program hosted by Derek Deis. “I’ve seen it at football, at volleyball and at soccer. If the Cougs show up, we’ll have a home court advantage like no other. The more fans we can get in there to help push this basketball team going forward, the better off we’ll be.

“Saturday is a huge opportunity for Washington State and our men’s hoops program. Getting this win would be a huge notch in our belts as we try to get better and head into March. We want to be playing our best basketball going into March.”

Beginning Saturday, WSU plays five of its last seven regular season games at Beasley, so the pieces are in place for the Cougars to pick up some wins ahead of the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas.

“Good teams protect home court,” Chun said. “Good teams shoot better at home. We have five opportunities to protect home court. If we can steal a couple of games on the road, that’s great. Now the focus shifts to Saturday.”

Kent has pleaded for fans to show up at home games ever since he was named WSU head coach in March 2014. For the most part, his words fell on deaf ears as the Cougs continually labored in the bottom half of the Pac-12 standings.

Will things be different on Saturday now that WSU has shown signs of turning things around?

“I know people have been through a lot with this program,” Kent said Tuesday on the ‘Cougs in 60’ program. “The struggles, the ups and downs and disappointments. Our guys deserve that support. They’re here busting their tail every day. It would huge to have (a big crowd at home. We played with a lot of energy in front of big crowds at Arizona State and Arizona.

“We fed off the crowd and the energy in the building, and it allowed us to play at a different level. It would be huge for these guys if we could have any type of crowd that was close to what we saw on the road. We would play at a different level as a basketball team.”

Chun preached patience even as fans howled over the Cougars’ struggles, and the reward finally came this past weekend in the desert.

“We’ve all seen glimpses of what this team could do in stretches,” Chun said. “But we never put together back-to-back halves. Now we’ve put together four great halves in a row. I get to see what’s under the hood a little more than others and this is a good group of young men. They are all dedicated to getting things right. Last week was a jolt of adrenalin.”