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PDF versionPROVO -- Weber State's men's basketball teams may have lost every one of their 17 games against Brigham Young University in Provo during the history of its program, but that fact doesn't scare this year's team.
The Wildcats (1-3) look to get the school's first-ever win in Provo tonight against an undefeated BYU squad.
"Like I told my guys the bigger the better," said WSU head coach Randy Rahe. "Let's go play them and see what we can do."
WSU knows it's in for another big challenge tonight. The Cougars (4-0) are the preseason favorite to win the Mountain West Conference after winning the league for the third-consecutive season a year ago. Last year the Cougars also handed WSU a 92-62 defeat at he Dee Events Center, which was WSU's worst home loss against BYU in history.
"They beat us bad last year here, and we're going to go down there and compete," said WSU point guard Damian Lillard. "That's all we can do."
Will the Wildcats use last season's embarrassing loss to fire them up for tonight's game?
"I don't know if we're going to use it as motivation, but I'm sure everyone has it in the back of their heads what they did to us, and we're not going to let it happen again," Lillard said.
WSU comes into tonight's game following its 89-62 win over Western State on Tuesday. In that game the Wildcats outscored their opponents 58-26 in the second half, as they picked up their first win of the season.
"We're just going to have to play with the same desire against BYU as we did (Tuesday)," said WSU center Steve Panos.
During that second half, Rahe got a glimpse of what he hopes to see soon.
"We're the kind of team that the way we play it usually takes us till mid-December to get comfortable with all of our rotations and everything and I thought tonight (on Tuesday) we were a little bit closer to that," Rahe said.
Following tonight's game, WSU will turn its attention to Wednesday's home game against Utah. Then the 'Cats play their Big Sky Conference opener on Dec. 5 at Sacramento State before returning to non-league action.
