Strangers on the court

DENVER – The NCAA tournament not only showcases the best of college basketball, it brings together teams that ordinarily wouldn’t play each other.

Such is the case in Thursday’s first-round game between Washington State (24-8) and Winthrop (22-11) in the East Region at the Pepsi Center.

Not only have the two teams never met, the Cougars have only played three teams from Winthrop’s conference, the Big South, in more than 100 years of basketball.

WSU is 3-0 in those intersectional games, all played since 2002.

Winthrop, located in Rock Hill, S.C., a suburb of Charlotte, N.C., is the opposite against the Pac-10, losing all three times the Eagles have faced the conference’s schools, including last season versus Oregon in the NCAA second round at Spokane.

It’s little wonder Winthrop coach Randy Peele said this week, “I haven’t been a guy who has followed Washington State their entire year.”

•Speaking of last year’s subregional in Spokane, Peele, then an assistant coach, has fond memories he’s hoping to repeat.

“If we have the same results as last year we’ll be happy,” he said.

The 11th-seeded Eagles, who finished last season 29-5, upset sixth-seeded Notre Dame, 74-64 in the opening round before falling to Oregon.

The Irish had a chance earlier this season to avenge the loss. Both schools were in the Paradise Jam in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to start this year and would have met in the title game had Notre Dame not lost to Baylor in the second round.

Now the Irish have another possible shot at revenge, but it would necessitate both winning first-round games Thursday.

•The Eagles went on to lose the Paradise Jam championship game to the Bears.

The loss came just a couple of weeks before Baylor hosted Washington State in Waco, Texas.

The Cougars rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit to defeat the NCAA-bound Bears 67-64.

•Denver is appropriately nicknamed the Mile High city, and the altitude could be a factor, probably more so for Winthrop than WSU.

Pullman is at about 2,400 feet altitude while Rock Hill is 756 feet.

But Peele is trying to keep his players’ mind off such things.

“The first thing I’m going to tell our players about the (altitude) is, ‘Don’t worry about it, because we’re playing inside,’ ” he joked.