Cougar Quick Hits

Happy Saturday, Cougs! Before my day of watching soccer and basketball and hockey and more soccer and more basketball renders me completely incapacitated, I wanted to fire off some quick notes about the latest and greatest in Wazzu comings and goings. That was a fun sentence. First and foremost….

The NIT

Say what you will about the venerable old tournament, but I’ve enjoyed the hell out of this ride to MSG. Like any other Coug fan, Selection Sunday was pretty rough. I had no expectation of the Cougs’ name being called that day, but I did become increasingly frustrated as a stream of teams with whom I felt we could hang were named. On their day, the Cougs certainly would have been a tough out. As we all know that ship sailed. As soon as the first game against Long Beach State tipped off, it was like any other game for me. The Cougs were playing and I wanted them to win. More of the same against Oklahoma State, then on Wednesday for the Northwestern game, I spent the better part of two and half hours completely ignoring my friends. It turns out that when Washington State is on the front of one team’s jerseys, it doesn’t matter the setting. I’m going to go nuts over the outcome. Even if it’s not what we wanted out of this season, it’s going to be special watching our Cougs on that ever-recognizable floor in the “World’s Most Famous Arena”.

Click on the jump for more news and moderately coherent ramblings from yours truly. You’ll very much want to do this. At the end of the article, I’ll make a case for WSU as national champions!

The Marijuana Issue

I’m only touching on this out of a sense of obligation, but I don’t particularly have anything to add beyond what’s already been said. I’m certainly not going to detail it better than Sutra so poignantly did the other day. The DeAngelo Casto suspension/non-suspension was one of the most fascincating sports stories to come out of Pullman since a plane from Tuscaloosa touched down at Pullman-Moscow International. From Casto himself to the Pullman PD to Bill Moos, there was plenty of small town intrigue to go around. I’m much more concerned with the long-term ramifications of this situation. Let’s not forget that the football team had its share of issues with the stick-icky this year. The microscope is on the athletes now. I hope there is something other than THC that can influence these young men and get them to lay off the stuff for a while so that we don’t have to keep dealing with these situations.

A New Player!

In case you missed the news yesterday, the Cougar basketball team added another member to its 2011 recruiting class with the commitment of D.J. Shelton out of Citrus Community College. Listed at 6’9″, 220, Shelton looks to be a nice addition to the frontcourt. I don’t know nearly enough about him as a player (maybe our resident recruiting guru Tommy can help me out here), but I’m less concerned about Shelton specifically than I am what this means for the roster. Shelton is now the third member of the class of 2011, joining DaVonte Lacy and Greg Sequele. As I’m sure you well know, there are no scholarship players scheduled to depart after this season. To the best of my knowledge, Washington State is currently one player under the maximum scholarship limit. With just these three recruits coming in, that would put Ken Bone’s team two players over the limit. It’s not really just these two players coming in though. Fresno State transfer Mike Ladd is someone that I speculate would be going on scholarship next year as well. This creates somewhat of a mess. I’m not looking into the Shelton signing as a DeAngelo Casto contingency plan, nor do I think Bone is beefing up the roster count to account for the loss of Klay Thompson. I’m either an optimist or an idiot, but let’s assume that both Thompson and Casto will be returning, which means that the scholarships will have to be freed up from somewhere else on the roster. I would contend that Charlie Enquist and Steven Bjornstad may be likely candidates, but that’s merely an educated guess. This also means that a walk-on like Will DiIorio will likely have to wait out another year before getting on scholarship. Take into account the always possible grade issues and it becomes clear that the only thing I know for sure is that this offseason we’re going to see a good amount of turnover on the roster.

The Big Dance by Proxy

I referenced earlier my belief that the Cougs could have held their own with plenty of teams in the NCAA Tournament this year, now I’m out to prove it scientifically. As I write this, there are (Elite) Eight teams left to vie for the national championship. I wanted to play some six degrees of separation to find out exactly how the future NIT champ Washington State Cougars stack up.

Butler – OK, yes I realize WSU lost to Butler straight up, but maybe you forgot that Klay and the Gang were really really tired that day, so let’s take a closer look. You may have also forgot that Butler was destroyed by Duke earlier this season. The same Duke team that was destroyed by Arizona who plays in a little conference called the Pac 10. Believe it or not, Arizona once lost by 17 to Eww-Dub, a team that Wazzu beat handily. Twice. So, WSU is better than Butler.

Florida – Good news, folks. I’ve figured this one out too. Florida lost to Central Florida, who beat Miami, who lost to Duke who beat Butler who….well you know. See above. Boom. WSU is better than Florida.

Arizona – This one’s easy. First of all, I know in my heart of hearts that WSU could beat Arizona and collapsed at home against them to generously raise the over profile of the conference. Secondly, I already told you that Arizona lost to the Dogs, the ones that lost to WSU. Twice.

Connecticut – The Huskies lost earlier this year to the Pittsburgh Panthers. Pitt lost to Tennessee. Tennessee lost to USC. Did WSU beat USC? Why, yes. Yes they did. Take that UCONN. WSU is better.

Virginia Commonwealth University – The Rams lost in overtime to South Florida, a Bulls team that beat Texas Tech. The very same Texas Tech team that lost to no less than three teams that the Cougs beat: UW, Baylor and the recently dismantled Oklahoma State. This one wasn’t even close. Nice try, VCU.

Kansas – I thought this would be a tough one, but really the Jayhawks never stood a chance once they lost to Texas. The Longhorns lost to USC, Pitt and Arizona. I’ve already covered those. Much to my surprise, Washington State is better than the only #1 seed left in the tournament.

Kentucky – The Wildcats’ loss resume includes UCONN (covered them already), UNC, who lost to Duke, who beat Butler, etc. and Georgia,a team recently downed by the Pac 10’s own Washington Huskies. If for some reason you just started reading this article now, you may not be aware that the Washington Huskies lost to the Washington State Cougars. Twice.

North Carolina – The Tar Heels lost early in the season to Minnesota. Minnesota lost twice since March 2nd to……the Northwestern Wildcat, the last team to be beaten by the Mighty Cougars of Washington State. 

So there you have it, Coug fans. I have once and for all proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Washington State had every right in the world to play in the NCAA Tournament, and beyond that, the would have one the whole dang thing. Just do me a favor, please. Nobody do this little exercise in reverse.

Go Cougs.