I keep telling myself the following things:

1) They have either an injured PG or a freshman PG going up against Taylor
2) MSU’s defense thrives off of blocks and turnovers, both of which we are pretty good at avoiding
3) Our defense thrives on forcing low percentage shots, whereas MSU gets a lot of points on open 3s and dunks – whichever of us can impose our will on that end of the court will likely win the game, and I have faith in my Cougs!
4) According to Ken Pomeroy’s stats, MSU turns the ball over a lot, hmmm bad signs going against one of the best defensive teams in the country.
5) We will get open looks from 3, we just have to convert them.

Overall, I think we are slightly more experienced with our starting lineups, and hopefully we won’t need to go deep into our bench due to foul trouble. I will be watching the game at a bar so I won’t get back to this thread during the game. Enjoy everybody, should be a dandy!

But the second half sounded like a piece of cake, even with the Cougs not playing their best.

Rochestie’s shot was off. Just think if it had been on?

It sounded like Bennett did a good job of managing the time with his bigs on the floor. All three: Baynes, Casto, and Forrest got into foul trouble late. Baynes ended up fouling out, but we had a lead in tact at that time.

I don’t think Mississippi State is a high caliber team. They had 20 turnovers and 12 of them were unforced turnovers. Good overall defense by the Cougars, but Miss St. also beat themselves.

You’ve got to love the minutes that Caleb Forrest provides. He got his one drawn charge of the night as Nuss stated in Forrest’s player profile.

I really wish I could have watched this game (and tomorrow’s game) on TV. But there is probably nowhere in central Washington that has HD Net. I have the feeling that the satellites don’t even deliver the signal to this area.

His jump shot is a thing of beauty. He plays way above his level as a freshman, totally a natural talent. Him and Baynes kept us afloat early on, and then general hard-nosed defense and good rebounding allowed us to keep our lead. I wonder what Dick Bennett thought of this game – we gave up some transition baskets because we stayed up to get offensive rebounds, but those same offensive boards helped us drain the clock and get some easy buckets for Forrest and Baynes under the hoop. My main memory of the WSU offense three years ago was Low putting up a shot and there being no Cougs inside the arc by the time it landed, good or not.