John Blanchette: Here comes the heavy lifting for Cougs

It was sometime during the telecast of Florida’s weekend pasting of Ohio State that hell turned into a hockey rink.

To wit: Billy Packer paid the Pac-10 a compliment.

Whether he’d neglected to take his medication or the ACC commissioner hadn’t applied enough tongue to Billy’s shoeshine isn’t clear, but the Toad of Tobacco Road seemed thoroughly smitten with the Conference of Champions, if that’s what they’re still calling it. He even suggested the Pac-10 might be the strongest basketball conference in college basketball this year, and there was some math – 88-22 out of conference – to back it up.

One station over on the television dial, Nancy Pelosi and Ann Coulter were seen sharing a laugh over Starbucks and scones.

Naturally, this puts a westerner in the compromising position of actually agreeing with Mr. CBS, so it’s probably not something to put on a banner. And then there’s the perspective of Washington State’s Tony Bennett, a rookie head coach bound for his baptism this weekend at UCLA and USC.

“I was thinking,” he laughed, “this would be a great year for the conference to be down.”

Of course, his Cougars are a significant reason the conference is up.

It has been 15 years since the Cougars have had a record as gaudy as 11-1 in non-conference play, and even the 12-1 mark in 1992 wasn’t all that: five 20-loss teams and three non-Division I opponents participated in the ritual sacrifice. That’s why a 21-win Wazzu team didn’t go to the NCAA tournament.

And how’s that for a segue to asking Bennett what it feels like to coach a team suddenly burdened with expectation?

“I’m not really aware of too many,” he said.

Right. Like a whisper in Pullman can’t be picked up on the other side of town.

Just the act of beating Gonzaga when the Zags were still in the Top 25 sent imaginations soaring. The sport of imagining December’s achievements as March’s rewards isn’t even as old as Bennett himself, but it is toothpaste liberated from the tube. It is also equal parts foolish and vain, and so among the other cautions Bennett issues is one that tries to mitigate inflated worth.

“It’s just a mistake to make too much of it,” he said of WSU’s non-conference record, “because of what’s ahead.

“We’re obviously happy with what we’ve seen. We’ve beaten a couple quality opponents, we’re finishing some games, maybe showing some more balance. But I don’t think the overall competition is comparable to what we’re going to see the next couple of months, outside of a couple of teams. We’ve found out some things about our team, but you can’t put too much weight on what’s happened.”

Here’s what he means: The Cougars closed out the pre-Christmas schedule with semi-impressive victory in Seattle over San Diego State. In this case, “semi” means the Cougs were the ghastly half the time – though they were wise enough to bunch it all before intermission.

“We found a way to win,” Bennett said, “but that’s not going to be good enough from here on out. We can’t play 20 minutes and be that far below our abilities, especially on the road, and think we’re going to be in games. We can’t lose sight of who we are. If we think for one second that we’ve arrived, we’re in trouble.”

Well, trouble is as near as the next game, anyway, which is why a fan has to dream.

And what a Cougar fan can see is that a .500 record in the Pac-10 gets his team to 20 wins even before the Pac-10 tournament – and that always seems to be where the NCAA discussion starts. Never mind that the Cougars haven’t been .500 in the Pac-10 in a decade, or the relative strength of the league this year.

Ken Pomeroy is part of college basketball’s computer army, but he’s one of the few who actually tries to project specific outcomes. His Web site machinations project the Cougs to go 8-10 in the Pac-10, which is certainly respectable enough. Problem is, he has six other teams going 9-9 or better, and all but one of them currently is ahead of WSU in the Ratings Percentage Index.

And the NCAA selection committee has never slotted more than six Pac-10 teams in its tournament.

Which, of course, doesn’t mean it won’t – any more than projecting a certain record means it will pan out or that Wazzu’s 0-24 history against No. 1 teams means Thursday’s game against UCLA is an automatic 0-25.

“You can’t get too consumed with focusing on them being No. 1 or what they did to us last year,” Bennett said. “You never want to think, ‘This team might be too good’ and that we need to prepare for the next team because you have a better chance, because you never know in basketball when you’re going to be on your game and when the other team isn’t. You can’t plan that. You’ve got to get the ones you can get and take each game as a tremendous opportunity.”

Well, there are plenty of them early. After UCLA is a USC program finding prosperity under Tim Floyd, and a week later in Pullman an Arizona team Bennett said “could just as well be No. 1.”

Two No. 1s? From the Pac-10?

Better not ask Billy. He’s probably used up his quota of compliments.