Okay, so that was actually somewhat tasteless. Did you really expect anything more from me though? I certainly hope not.

So last night the Cougars did what they have done best in the past few years, and that is beat the Huskies. In football, the Cougs are 3 of their last 4; in men’s hoops, its now six straight wins. But Huskies or not, it was certainly a big win for WSU. The reason why is that the Cougars were stuck with one of the most difficult starts to the Pac 10 season imaginable. Including last night’s game, the Cougs were to have three consecutive road games starting with their in-state rival and ending in Los Angeles with USC and UCLA. My first thought when I saw this on the schedule is that this road trip would tell us everything we want to know about the 2007-08 Cougars basketball team. This is what I figured the trip might mean for the different outcomes:

• 0 wins - going to be an awfully disappointing season
• 1 win - probably an up and down year with the Cougs’ playoff birth coming down to their performance in the Pac 10 tournament
• 2 wins - pretty much what we expected; a top 15 team that will get a decent seed in March
• 3 wins - it’s time to start burning your Husky gear UW fans; there’s a new sheriff in town

So this is a great start to the Pac 10 schedule, and the Cougs won the game the way they need to: defense, and free throw shooting. In my mind, the keys to the game were:

• WSU only turned the ball over 7 times compared to 14 by the Huskies
• WSU shot .857 from the stripe; UW was a mere .385
• WSU’s defense had a total of 10 steals and 6 blocked shots; UW had 3 and 1

All in all, it was a good defensive effort and my analysis of the team from last season still seems to be holding true: it all comes down to free throw shooting. The 4 point win could easily have been negated by a swing of just 2 freee throws for each team. If the Huskies make 7 of 13 instead of 5 and the Cougs hit 10 or fewer of their 14 shots from the line, and it’s a tie game… and who knows. But that’s not what happened, and the good guys won.

Player of the Game
This was a no brainer: Kyle Weaver had 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 blocked shot… oh, and 13 points. The runner up though was Daven Harmeling who seemed to be in a funk earlier in the year; he was 2-3 from three point land on the night signaling that me might be over the hump.