Big Sky Basketball: Top 10 head coaches of the century (2000-20)
By Joey Loose
4. Big Sky Basketball coach rankings – Ken Bone (Portland State, 2005-2009)
In the years before Bone took over at Portland State, he built a successful D2 program at Seattle Pacific. After a few years assisting Lorenzo Romar at Washington, he got his shot to run a D1 program when the Vikings hired him in 2005. There was very little success in Portland State’s basketball history before Bone’s arrival, but he made sure to leave behind a few memories during his time there.
After two slow seasons of building things up, Bone led Portland State to the top of the Big Sky standings in 2008. In each of his final two seasons, Portland State won 23 games and made the NCAA Tournament, the first two appearances in program history. In the blink of an eye, Bone transformed this squad and led the program to the promised land at last, winning a great deal of Big Sky games along the way.
Bone departed for Washington State in 2009, though found far less success in the Pac-12. While he’s actually back assisting Romar (this time at Pepperdine), we can’t deny his success in the Big Sky alone. Portland State had very little to boast about before his arrival, and he’s responsible for all of the program’s postseason success. There’s no guarantee the success would have continued had Bone stayed in Portland, but you can’t deny the positive impact he had on this program, a success that his successors have yet to continue.