Happy Monday evening Cougar fans!
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Moving on, Read More for the rest of today’s post.
It’s been fairly quiet on both the basketball and football front lately. I believe the recruiting Dead Period for football goes into effect shortly, so don’t expect much news there. Last week the Men’s Basketball team demolished Gonzaga and Texas Pan-American by 20+ in both contests. With it being Finals Week in Pullman, our guys are concentrating on class, until heading to the Bay Area to take on Santa Clara this Sunday before heading to Hawaii for the Diamond Head Classic over Christmas. Check out how loaded the tournament is. Also, take a look at the ink on the Cougs in ESPN’s Weekly Watch column. Bracketologist Joe Lunardi currently has the Cougs as a 12 Seed and he also believes the Cougs have the highest RPI in the league at .6039 (whatever the hell that means). Klay Thompson was also named Pac 10 Player of the Week for the fourth time in his career. Please, God, let there be an NBA lock-out in 2011-2012 so we can get another year of #1!!! Read more about a potential lock-out, here, here, and here. Suck it David Stern!
The Cougs open the tournament with Mississippi State on Wednesday 12/22 at Noon, and then face the winner of Baylor and San Diego. The last time Wazzu faced the Bulldogs was in New Jersey in December 2009 under Tony Bennett and they easily sent the Dogs packing. Klay Thompson announced himself as a force this night, dropping 19 points and collecting 10 boards. The Bulldogs this year sit at 5-2, and have wins over a bunch of scrubs and have losses to Florida Atlantic and East Tennessee State. Prior to heading west to Honolulu, the Bulldogs face Virginia Tech in the Bahamas. If the Cougs bring it like they have the last four or five games, expect them to be matched up Thursday night with Baylor. Unless the Bears can’t get past poor San Diego.
Gonzaga travels to Dallas on Saturday to battle the Bears. The rest of the Pac 10 should be rooting heavily for the Zags as thus far, it appears to be the best non-conference win the conference has (well, UW has a nice win over Texas Tech and USC has a win over a Top 20 Texas squad?).
The Cougs have faced the Bears twice in the last few seasons, losing in 2008 and winning in Waco in 2007. Last year the 28-7 Bears lost in the Elite 8 by a few points to eventual champion Duke, and return a handful of players from that squad.
Currently the Bears are 6-0, but their only “quality” win is over Arizona State. They are led by senior LaceDarius Dunn, who is averaging nearly 23 PPG in the three games he has played. Also in the mix for Baylor is junior forward Quincy Acy, who is scoring just a hair under 15 PPG. Freshmen F/C Perry Jones nearly averages a double-double, scoring 12.8 and pulling down nine rebounds per contest. Sophomore AJ Walton appears to be their PG and distributor with 5.4 assists/game to go with 10 points/game.
If the Cougs can get past the first two opponents, they appear to get one of the following three teams in the Championship Game; 2010 National Runner-Up Butler, Florida State, Hawaii or Utah. That game I believe will be on Christmas Day and televised to a National TV audience via ESPN.
So what does all of this mean? The Cougs currently sit at 7-1. Finishing the tournament strong, they could be as high as 11-1. If that is the case, look for the Cougs to move up from their current spot outside the top 25 (#36 and #41 depending on which poll you look at).
If the Cougs struggle in the Bay and in Hawaii, they will need to go roughly 13-5 in Pac 10 play (excluding the conference tourney) to get an invite come Selection Sunday. If the Cougs win two or three over the next week and a half, I think 11 or 12 conference wins gets them invited. Winning the remainder of the out of conference slate, nine or ten conference wins should get them dancing.
To win three or four of the remaining OOC games, here are some of the keys:
–Rebounding: Thus far, Wazzu has not been very good on the glass. We rank 225th nationally, averaging only 34.5 rebounds/game. Part of that can be attributed to the fact we are a “smaller” team, and the other part has to do with the fact we are 9th in the country in Field Goal percentage, knocking down just a shade over half of our attempts. But rebounding doomed us in the Kansas State game. The biggest key is if DeAngelo Casto can get stronger in the post. He was in a boot (insert Canadian joke here) earlier this season and missed a game or two, but has not looked as confident in the three games he has played since returning, averaging just six boards per game.
–Free Throws: They’re called “free” throws for a reason folks, and WSU is hitting under 63% on the year. We would have beat Kansas State, if we were even slightly above our season average! The Cougs missed TEN free throws in that game. If they would have made, say, five of those, it could have been a different outcome altogether.
–Zone Defense: In the past three contests, WSU has employed a fantastic Zone Defense. We held Kansas State 13 points below their season average and Gonzaga 18 below their average. The Zone also forced the Wildcats and Zags to more than 20 turnovers each, way above their season averages. Some more of the same in the next few contests will pay major dividends against high octane offenses like Santa Clara (72 ppg), Mississippi State (74 ppg), Baylor (75 ppg), Butler (73 ppg) and possibly Florida State (74 ppg).
–Intangibles: First of all, this team has a lot of floor time together the past two or three years, and the Freshmen and JC Transfer appear to be fitting in quite nicely. Experience is a major component to successful squads.
Secondly, everybody is aware of Klay Thompson, Faisal Aden, Reggie Moore, and DeAngelo Casto. Two of the young players who have me excited are Brock Motum and Patrick Simon. Motum is playing less than 19 minutes per game, but has been extremely effective in those minutes, averaging just under ten points/game, while knocking down nearly 67% of his shots! His length on the defensive side of the ball has also impressed me, as he seems to create lots of loose balls with his wingspan. Patrick Simon, the true freshmen from Ephrata, while not being a scoring machine, has also given Bone a nice weapon off the bench. Simon is making 40% of his attempts (30) from downtown.
All-in-all, this is a much more confident team than we saw in 2009-2010. They have a legitimate shot at contending for the Pac 10 title. I expect UW, Arizona and Wazzu to finish 1-2-3 (in no particular order), followed by USC and UCLA. I expect the Bay Area and Oregon schools to finish 7-10, with Oregon State likely in the cellar.
That is all for today, have a great week, and as always, Go Cougs!
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