YTD MENS: 90 - 43 NIT PICKING Villanova @Liberty PASS!
Eagles @Cougars
My ratings:#131 @ #73
Eagles could possibly turn things around from their horrendous finish and post a huge upset......Maybe!.....Upsets do happen at this time of year!.......but my money believes they won't.
WS Cougars are surprisingly VERY GOOD and play extremely close (and often win) in games against much tougher NCAA competition than Eagles. Their last loss was only by 5 pts to Tournament #1 seed Oregon. The four losses prior to that were all against squads significantly better than E.Wash and all were on the road.....Tonight is a HOME game where they play even better.
Their top player, Bamba, missed two conf games - one a road loss at tough, UTAH....and the other a home win vs Stanford - which we could argue was only a 1 pt win *because* they were without their best player. Stanford is better than E.Wash.
Rivalry game. I expect underdog Eagles to show a lot of spunk and even lead early!.....possibly back and forth through 3 Qs.....But barring an unusual night shooting for either team and/or bad run of fouls on Cougars, I expect the significantly better team - fully healthy and playing at home - to pull it out by game's end
As of this morning there are no known announcements of any player not suiting up for this game...
COUGARS -575