Weber State Wildcats.
The obvious story line you may be hearing a lot in next three days is how our part of Western regional is shaping up to a Ben Howland Bracket with all the potential matchups and storylines. However, here on BN for next few days until Thursday night's tipoff we are going to keep our focus on one team only: Weber State.
The Big Sky Champions are one of the feel good stories of this year's tourney season, going to worst to first in a span of one year. From Sporstline:
One year after a last-place finish, David Patten was being carried off the court by Weber State fans.
Patten, the league's MVP, scored a team-high 22 points Wednesday night, leading the Wildcats to the Big Sky Conference Tournament title with an 88-80 victory over Northern Arizona.
The win put the Wildcats (20-11, 12-5) into the NCAA Tournament for the 14th time in school history, the first since 2003.
Patten was the only returning starter from the team that finished last in the conference a year ago. Under first-year coach Randy Rahe, the Wildcats engineered one of the most surprising turnarounds in Big Sky history.
For more preliminary info. check out their official website, and their team-pages on the Mid Majority Report and Pomeroy.Patten, the league's MVP, scored a team-high 22 points Wednesday night, leading the Wildcats to the Big Sky Conference Tournament title with an 88-80 victory over Northern Arizona.
The win put the Wildcats (20-11, 12-5) into the NCAA Tournament for the 14th time in school history, the first since 2003.
Patten was the only returning starter from the team that finished last in the conference a year ago. Under first-year coach Randy Rahe, the Wildcats engineered one of the most surprising turnarounds in Big Sky history.
We are going to have lot more on our first game starting tomorrow.
What do we need to prepare for Thursday night? Well Sportsline's Garry Parrish is channeling BN (emphasis mine):
Bottom line, for the better part of four months the Bruins looked like one of the best teams in the nation while winning the Pac-10 by two games. So the ability is there. Nobody disputes that. And now it's just a matter of Ben Howland getting things refocused to ensure any bad habits from this two-game losing streak don't carry over into the Big Dance because otherwise UCLA won't be dancing too long.
Again I couldn't care less about who else is in our bracket. I don't care what teams are lurking ahead of us. None of it is going to matter if we play like we did against Washington and Cal on Thursday night.I just want our boys to get back into Ben Ball form starting Thursday night and take care of business against Weber State. And we are going to keep our focus on the Wildcats for next 3 and half days.
Game on.
GO BRUINS.