STF Super Awesome Team Previews: #8 Washington State Cougars

#8 Washington State Cougars





Team: Washington State Cougars

Conference: Pac-10

Last Season Recap: 26-8, Lost in Second Round to Vanderbilt

Key Players Returning: Pretty much everyone returns form last year's squad that shocked the nation with it's 26-8 record, namely super guard Derrick Low, C Robbie Cowgill, and PG Kyle Weaver. Seriously, if you could have predicted that Wazzou, perennially one of the worst BCS basketball schools and picked to finish dead last by the coaches in the preseason, would have won that many games, you should be writting for this blog (and rich with that bet you made in Vegas)

What's To Love: The return of Low, Weaver and Cowgill from last season's team are the reason for such extreme optimism by Coach Tony Bennett and their fans. Despite the fact that if you saw this team walk on to the court without names on the jerseys, you would think that they look like a DIII school. Desptie this, the Cougars possess all of the key elements for a successful college hoops team: a terrific scoring and passing guard in Low, a versatile defensive point guard in Weaver and do-everything post player in Cowgill, a three point threat in G Harmling, a deep bench and a team first attitude.

What's Not To Love: If last year proved anything, it's the preseason rankings don't mean shit. Let's put it this way, it would be less surprising if this team finished 8th in the Pac-10 this season than last year's team finishing 26-8. The Cougars aren't going to sneak up on anyone this season, and some say could be primed for a letdown. Also, their will be no off nights for Cougars in extremely tough Pac-10

Key Player: Low and Weaver figure to continue their improvement into elite players, so we'll go with Robbie Cowgill as the key player for this time. We love his old-school, all-around game for a center (8.1 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 1.2 apg), but at 210 lbs, he'll continue to smaller than his lowpost counterparts in the Pac-10. If he can increase his scoring a bit and withstand an entire season under the basket, the Cougars should thrive.

Best Case: The Cougars prove to be no one year fluke by once again beating teams with their discipline, team defense, tempo control and hustle, Low and Weaver look as good as they did for Team USA this summer, Cowgill increases his points and survives the season, Baynes is a capable big body of the bench, Harmeling's treys takes the focus off Weaver and Low.

Worst Case: No more surprises, everyone has game-planned on how to beat the Cougars, this team struggles with bigger and more athletic teams in an up-and-down game, the Cougars are killed on the boards, the team suffers a collective letdown season.

STF Prediction: Too much for talent and experience returns for this team to have a major letdown. 2nd or 3rd in the Pac-10, Sweet 16.