Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but the future certainly looks bright for the Cougs, considering all but one key contibutor to this year's success will return next year. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at next year's pre-season Pac-10 banquet, where Iron Chef Bennett will incorporate the secret ingredient CROW into every dish served to the writers who overlooked his determined team.

Of course before planning out that menu, Coach Bennett and the Cougs will look to put an exclamation point at the end of this season. First up is Oral Roberts, the Mid-Continent champs for two years running. The Golden Eagles are led by 3-time MCC Player of the Year and All-American candidate Caleb Green and fellow 2,000 point scorer Ken Tutt. Green and Tutt became just the 7th set of teammates in NCAA history to reach the 2,000 point plateau, when Tutt got there in the MCC title game last week.

Green could be a tough match-up for the Cougs. He's tall and athletic, having led ORU and the MCC in scoring and rebounding the last two years. ORU had a signature win early in the season over NCAA #1 seed Kansas but their 06/07 schedule was otherwise unimpressive, both in terms of who they beat and who beat them. I won't pretend to know any more about this team than I was able to learn in the last hour or so but based on competition alone, WSU is easily the better team.

Because the Cougs are relatively unknown by the "experts" and have such a high seed, they will undoubtedly be picked by many to fall early. The funny thing is that if this same team were a 10-16 seed, the same experts would be picking them as a potential spoiler. The bottom line is that this Cougar team plays a brand of basketball that is well-suited to making a deep run in the tournament. Tenacious defense and a balanced scoring attack will continue to give the Cougs a chance to win - maybe all the way to Atlanta.

Go Cougs!