Well, at least all of the pundits who called for Washington State’s demise in the first round against Oral Roberts. I know that Oral Roberts is a pretty good mid-major team, but I really could not believe how many columns I read saying that not only did Oral Roberts have a good chance at an upset… it was a near certainty. Oh, “but they beat Kansas”, they exclaimed. Yes, they did, they beat Kansas… in November… on their second game of the season. That part did not seem to get mentioned at all. Nope, they were legit because they beat Kansas when Kansas was still wearing the warmups.

Other fun little tidbits were that WSU’s rebounding was suspect and Oral Roberts was going to dominate the inside game. Anyone who has watched a WSU game might have noticed a lack of guys crashing the boards, in exchange for having as many defenders back as quickly as possible. So I understand they don’t rebound, but they have not rebounded well all season long, this is not new, why does it all of a sudden matter in March, but not in February when they were ranked top 10?

The final gem were those who said that Oral Robers was not going to be “intimidated” by WSU. Wow, what great analysis. Not a single person outside of the state of Washington seems to think very highly of WSU, and maybe that will actually work in their favor down the stretch here, but I guess I was taken aback when I kept reading all the nonsense on Yahoo!, the Sporting News, CBS Sports, ESPN, and even on ESPN Radio that said that Oral Roberts was as close to a sure upset as you can get. And after looking at the brackets on CBS Sports of the “experts” Michael Freeman, Tony Mejia, and Steve Lappas (who got 2 of the 8 morning games correct… some expert), its clear that a lot of analysts aren’t quite sure what to make of the Cougs.

At some point, the Cougars are going to need to get some respect, and hopefully that respect finally comes at the expense of Vanderbilt, and at the minimum, running with the Hoyas in the Sweet 16, although I must say that in 2 out of my 3 brackets I have the Cougars in the Final Four… and they are quite capable of getting there whether you believe it or not.