PULLMAN, Wash. — Portland State basketball coach Ken Bone will become the new coach at Washington State University, the Cougars said Monday. Bone will replace Tony Bennett, who last week left for Virginia. Bone will be introduced Tuesday as WSU’s 17th head coach, the Washington school said in a news release.

Bone has led Portland State of the Big Sky Conference to two consecutive NCAA basketball tournaments, plus an eye-opening road win at Gonzaga this season.

Bone did not immediately return telephone and text messages from The Associated Press.

Bone, 50, was mentioned immediately as a possible replacement to Bennett. The Cougars also interviewed Utah State’s Stew Morrill and Alabama-Birmingham’s Mike Davis. Morrill took his name out of consideration on Monday.

Bone has been at PSU for four years, posting a 77-49 record. Before that, he spent three seasons as an assistant coach at Washington, and was longtime head coach at Seattle Pacific, where he worked with Washington State athletics director Jim Sterk. He posted a 253-97 record in 12 seasons at the Division II school.

Bone is the second major sports coach Sterk has hired out of the Big Sky Conference, after Paul Wulff, who was hired from Eastern Washington last year to coach the WSU football team.

Portland State has posted consecutive 23-10 seasons, the most wins and only NCAA tournament appearances in team history. This year, the Vikings became only the third team to beat Gonzaga in the McCarthey Athletic Center since it opened in 2004. They lost by one point at Washington in December.

Bennett led the Cougars to a 69-33 record the past three years, the finest such run in team history. The Cougars went to consecutive NCAA tournaments, and went to the NIT after going 17-16 this season.

Washington State is losing four seniors, including leading scorers Taylor Rochestie and Aron Baynes, as well as part-time starters Caleb Forrest and Daven Harmeling. Only two upperclassmen return next season, and the team will rely heavily on freshmen and sophomores.

Two players, Klay Thompson and DeAngelo Casto, made the all-Pac-10 freshman team last season. Bone must also consider four high school players who signed in November to play at WSU, and decide whether to keep or release them.

He will also decide the fates of three assistant coaches from Bennett’s staff, Ben Johnson, Matt Woodley and Mike Heideman, who were not offered jobs in Virginia.

Bone graduated from Seattle Pacific in 1983 and has also coached at Cal State-Stanislaus and Olympic Junior College in Bremerton.

Bone and his wife Connie have three daughters.