PULLMAN, Wash. -- Washington State basketball coach Paul Graham will apparently return next season, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Doubts had been raised that Graham would coach the fifth and final year of his contract after the Cougars lost their first 14 Pacific-10 Conference games this season.

But The Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane, citing unidentified sources, said WSU officials have decided to stick with Graham, who has a $130,000 buyout clause in his contract.

Washington State athletics director Jim Sterk on Tuesday refused to comment on the newspaper story, but acknowledged that Graham's future has been on his mind.

"Right now it's obviously something that we're looking at,'' Sterk said during a meeting in Seattle. "I've just told people it's a personnel issue and we're going to meet after this season and that's basically all I've got to say about that.''

Sterk said he has been impressed the team has continued battling even as losses and injuries piled up. The Cougars beat Oregon State on Saturday for their first Pac-10 win in two years, improving their record to 6-18 this season, 1-14 in the league.

"At a time when they could go in the tank and give up, they're battling and winning a game,'' Sterk said. "So I've been impressed with that.''

Graham was recruiting in California on Tuesday and did not participate in the weekly Pac-10 and Washington State basketball conference calls.

Graham told the newspaper he had not received any indication from Sterk that there would be a change after the season.

"He still treats me like the man that I think I am,'' Graham told the newspaper.

Graham has a 30-77 record in his four seasons at WSU. Only five of 323 Division I coaches who have been at the same school the past four years have lost more games than Graham. They are Dave Bike, Sacred Heart, 25-85; Reggie Witherspoon, Buffalo, 23-80; Phil Rowe, New Hampshire, 25-84; Sidney Green, Florida Atlantic, 35-83; and Jim Kerwin, Western Illinois, 32-79.

The Washington State program was in steep decline when Graham was hired off the Oklahoma State coaching staff in 1999. Since 1997, WSU is 27-103 in Pac-10 play.

The Cougars have been hampered this season by injuries to five of their top nine players, a problem forcing WSU to use 10 different starting lineups.

Attendance is also down at Friel Court, where the average of 2,256 people per game is the lowest in the 30-year history of the building.