Wow… when they say nighttime cold medicine… they really mean nighttime. Maybe downing half a bottle of NyQuil before school was not such a great idea. On the way here I counted three purple elephants… when normally I only see one… maybe two. Probably going to be a weird day.

Well, so last night in a cold-medicine induced haze, I thought I saw that the Cougs put up 70 points on the Beavers. Still not quite certain what, or how… all I know is that I still think that Taylor Rochestie is one of the most underrated players in the Pac-10. Plain and simple: he is the man. Don’t get me wrong, D-Low is still the leader on this team, and Kyle Weaver the spark that makes things work, but ever since I saw him play against Stanford last year, my man-crush on Rochestie has grown stronger by the week as he continually comes through in clutch situations.

That being said, let’s move on and take a look at what’s coming up.

Overall

From my perspective, the Cougs have 2 must-win games remaining on their schedule… but of course it would behoove them to win the rest anyway. So far, they Cougs have 5 losses in Pac-10 play, but 3 of those losses were to teams ranked in the top 15 when the games took place (5th ranked UCLA and then 14th ranked Stanford). So to me, the two must-win games are against Cal and Arizona - the two ‘bad’ losses the team has had. I think as long as they split the season series with each team, they end up doing okay. Other than those two teams, I think the Cougs can lose two more games and be “okay” going into the Pac-10 tourney. Of course finishing out with all W’s would be a little nicer… but maybe not completely necessary for now.

Duck Tales

I still have a hard time taking any team seriously with Donald Duck as a mascot… but that’s another post. Saturday the Cougs go into one of the more difficult places to play a game of basketball and not only that, the Ducks aren’t exactly as bad as their 6-6 Pac-10 record might suggest. At home, Oregon has beaten three teams ranked at the time of the game - K-State, Arizona, and Stanford. As a matter of fact, 7 of their 9 losses this year were on the road, meaning that this Duck team is a completely different team at home.

Right now, Vegas doesn’t have a line on the game, but still, Oregon is 13-5-2 against the spread in their last 20 home games, meaning that even if they don’t win the game, there is a damn good possibility that this is going to be a very close game.

For the Cougs, it looks like 70-55 is the magic score. Wazzu has dropped all 5 of their losses when allowing 55 or more points in conference play, and they have only lost one game when scoring at least 70. Oregon on the other hand, is 0-4 when scoring less than 70 points in a Pac-10 game (including a 60-69 loss in Pullman), but they have never failed to score 70 points in a home game.

The other concern is that in the last 4 seasons, Oregon has not dropped a home game to Wazzu… at all, and the average score between the two teams in their last four head-to-head match ups has been Oregon 67-WSU 64. In Eugene, the average over the past four seasons has been Oregon 65- WSU 52.

So basically, I think that this is going to be a close game, with at most 6 points separating the victors from the losers. Considering all the stats, I really should be leaning towards a loss tomorrow, and maybe this is the NyQuil talking, or my man-crush on Rochestie, but I think Taylor comes through in the clutch again for the Cougs this weekend.

WSU 68
Oregon 65