SEVEN

Cheer up kiddo. You guys sure tried hard. You might want to change those shorts though. I guess when you lose to “little brother” SEVEN straight times, it’s got to be tough.

In all seriousness, this one felt more grinder than thriller. Thrilling, sure, a thrill to win, beat your rival for the 7th straight time, and most of all, thrilled to salt away the #3 Pac-10 seed. But a grinder in the way this thing played out. If you are scoring at home, that’s now 7 straight in hoops, 3 out of the last 4 in football. WOW.

I finally thought the missed free throws, something we seem to be doing a lot of lately, was going to nail us. Not only Cowgill’s miss with 13 seconds left in a tie game, but to go just 19-29 for the game isn’t real great. It’s borderline-bad actually. We got absolutely destroyed on the glass too. Not that it’s all that surprising, but 42-23? That’s TERRIBLE.

To stay positive, you have to like Cowgill’s final home game. I can’t remember the last time I saw him actually look OK shooting the ball from 17-feet? But he sure hit a few. And that lay-in with 13 seconds left to time the game was huge. That was more or less a scramble for the ball at that point and obviously could have gone the other way, and suddenly you are fouling down 2. Instead we’re tied. Ok, he missed the FT (and borderline lucky to draw IRON he missed so badly!) but still, a heady play by the senior.

Low was efficient, 6-for-13 including a couple of 3’s. One of those was super-deep, easily from NBA land. He played pretty well with the ball too. I’m not sure what his turnover count was, but I don’t remember him making too many errant passes or really forcing the action. A nice way to go out.

I can’t believe Weaver’s final line of 20 points. Maybe it was because he made 9 FT’s, but he seemed to scuffle from the field. It didn’t “feel” like a guy who scored 20 points? I don’t know, hard to explain I guess.

ALL that said, I think the timing of our little “who’s our big-shot Bob?” poll was pretty good. Did you notice who hit those 3’s in the first OT, both when we were DOWN 3 points? They couldn’t have been better looks, and they couldn’t have come at a better time. Just gigantic shots to keep them in a game that felt like it was going to slip away so many times. Rochestie is the guy you want to take those shots, again not just because of his ability to hit the 3 or draw the foul, but his desire at crunch time to be THE GUY to take those shots! On a team that is totally unselfish, you have to at least have one guy that doesn’t look pass-first when the heat is on. Rochestie is that guy.

Well, on to the Pac-10 tourney. I truly hope this win will cement a Big Dance 6-seed, worst-case, regardless of what happens next week. We get the 6-seed Oregon Ducks in next Thursday at 6 PM. Let’s just rest up and get ready to go next week.