Can the Cougs overcome the fear factor?

I’ve said since the beginning of this tournament that North Carolina might be the most beatable No. 1 seed in the Dance for the Cougs. A lot of people thought I was nuts (and I must admit, I’d probably rather be playing Memphis right about now), but nothing that happened in the first two rounds of the tournament has led me to believe that the Cougs can’t beat the Heels.

The question, though, is this: Do the players believe they can beat the Heels?

You would hope that the answer would be a resounding yes, but unfortunately, history this season suggests that it’s at least valid to ask the question.

In their own words: Sweet 16 Sound Off

from sports.espn.go.com posted with vodpod

So, about that road contest

A lot of people have come up with a lot of reasons why the Cougars won’t be able to hang with North Carolina, and a lot of them are valid.

Then, when they run out of rational reasons (if they had any to begin with), they throw this in for good measure: “Well, North Carolina just has to get on a bus and drive down the road; those Cougars, they have to fly aaaallllllll the waaaaaaay from PULLMAN — which, incidentally, is in the middle of nowhere — to North Carolina to play in front of a hostile crowd. That’s just too much!”

Hogwash.

There are a lot of things this Cougar team has proven this season, and one of them is that they simply are not phased by traveling to another team’s arena.

No decent non-conference opponent wanted to come to Pullman this year to play a game in a style that’s been compared to a root canal. Scheduling was difficult, so Tony Bennett did the only thing he could to toughen his team up: Play a lot on the road. It was lamentable early in the season, but it has paid dividends, as statistics show that the Cougs learned to perform equally well in both friendly and hostile confines.