Ken Bone ’embarrassed’ by latest pot citation

Mar 24, 2011, 4:54 PM | Updated: Apr 4, 2011, 7:54 pm

By Brady Henderson

Washington State head coach Ken Bone and athletic director Bill Moos vowed changes will be made following the latest marijuana-related incident with a member of the men’s basketball team.

“This is not going to fly,” Bone told the Calabro show on Thursday, two days after forward DeAngelo Casto became the third Cougar this season to be cited for misdemeanor marijuana possession. “I’m very embarrassed and disappointed, and things are going to change.”

According to the Associated Press, Pullman police said “Casto acknowledged using the drug and handed over a small amount” when an officer knocked on the door of Casto’s apartment after seeing through a window what appeared to be man rolling a marijuana cigarette.

Casto was cited for misdemeanor marijuana possession and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. He pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.

Bone and Moos suspended Casto on Tuesday for the Cougars’ NIT match-up against Northwestern on Wednesday, only to reinstate him hours before the game citing new information in the case.

Casto had 11 points and eight rebounds in WSU’s 69-66 overtime win, which puts the Cougars into the Final Four of the NIT. They play Wichita State at Madison Square Garden in New York on Tuesday.

“With the information that we heard, it warranted a suspension. And whether we jumped the gun on that, we and I went off of the information that we had,” Bone said, adding that he and Moos came to the decision to suspend Casto. “The next day there was new information gathered and it did not make sense to have him suspended at that time, so the suspension was lifted by Bill Moos.”

Bone said the marijuana could have belonged to one of Casto’s roommates.

“As time goes on and the system takes its course, the legal system, we’ll find out more and deal with it as it goes along,” Bone said.

Klay Thompson, the team’s leading score, and fellow guard Reggie Moore were each suspended for one game this season following separate citations for marijuana possession.

WSU freshmen Jamal Atofau and Andre Barrington were arrested in October — and later dismissed from the football team — when police found 38 marijuana plants in their rental home.

Moos, who was also a guest Thursday on the Calabro show, said the school has been planning to implement a new code of conduct for its student-athletes that involves discipline as well as education and counseling.

“We don’t want to just punish the student athletes,” Moos said. “We want to help them to get past this and to get focused on what they should be focused on — and that’s their academics and being able to compete at the very highest level they can.”

Moos offered no exact timetable for when the code of conduct will go into effect.

“I’m going to crack down on this,” he said. “We need to do a much better job of changing the culture of our student-athletes.”

You can listen to Bill Moos here and Ken Bone here.

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