Opportunity time for Cougars

PULLMAN – Gonzaga will play Washington State at 7 tonight attempting to win another basketball game in the midst of an impossibly difficult stretch of December games.

WSU, on the other hand, will be attempting to win a whole lot more than just a game.

“A very special day that we’ve been looking forward to,” WSU senior Ivory Clark said. “To bring respectability back to the program, we’re going to have to beat a team like Gonzaga.”

The Cougars, of course, have suffered under the weight of mediocrity for years while their neighbors to the north have become local and national darlings. So while the Bulldogs are largely concerned with what they need to secure a victory tonight, the Cougars can’t help but discuss what the game will represent.

For starters, Friel Court will be surrounded by more fans than it’s seen for a Cougars game in more than a decade, with at least 11,000 expected to show up, with a sellout a strong possibility if there is a large student turnout.

“No black tarps,” WSU coach Tony Bennett said, referring to covers that obscure multiple sections of unoccupied seats for most home games. “I’m hoping for a great college basketball atmosphere.”

Furthermore, the Cougars are 7-1 this season, a marked improvement tarnished only slightly by their loss Saturday at Utah.

“Nationally, I don’t think people realize how well they’re playing,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said of the Cougars.

Then turning his attention to the expected crowd, he added, “If you’ve been at Gonzaga, playing or coaching, you’re pretty much used to having the opposing crowd ready to storm the floor. That’s just the way it goes.

“Our teams in the past have really done a good job of thriving under that, and I’m anxious to see how this group handles it,” Few added.

Although there are sure to be more than a handful of Gonzaga supporters in the crowd, this will be the first true road game for the 18th-ranked, 8-1 Bulldogs. And they’ll also have to be on guard against a letdown after beating a ranked Texas team days ago with another game against 13th-ranked Washington coming up Saturday.

WSU guard Derrick Low said he doesn’t expect GU to overlook his team, but at the same time he, too, acknowledges the added value of tonight’s game from the Cougars locker room.

Simply put, the Bulldogs have what the Cougars want, and tonight WSU has a chance to steal the spotlight.

“I think they’ve earned it,” Low said. “I mean, they’ve had great players come out of that program. They’ve been to the NCAA tournament countless times. They’ve been far; they’ve been deep in it. I’m not saying that they get a lot of attention they didn’t deserve. They definitely deserve everything about it. But they do get a lot of attention, and we’re trying to take that step forward for Washington State to become like them, to get recognition like them.”