SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It's not the most desirable time to play their first league game of the season, and if the Weber State Wildcats had their way, today's Big Sky Conference opener wouldn't be taking place until next month.
But they have to play the schedule they're dealt, and that includes tonight's meeting with Sacramento State.
So the Wildcats plan on adapting to the early conference battle.
"You've got to change your thought process," said WSU coach Randy Rahe.
"In the conference season, everything goes up. The energy has to go up, the toughness, the intensity. Everything has to go up because these games become very important."
The Wildcats (2-4), fresh off their 83-76 win over in-state rival Utah on Wednesday, take on a much-improved Sacramento State team that has already doubled its win total from last season.
The Hornets (4-4) topped UC Davis on Wednesday and notched a win at Oregon State last month. Last season the Hornets didn't win a game on the road and finished the year with a 2-27 overall record, 1-15 in the Big Sky.
So even though the 'Cats are feeling good about themselves, they know they can't be over-confident.
"We're a smart enough team to understand that we're not going to just go and win over there because we're going to go play a Sacramento State team that is probably the most-improved team in the conference," Rahe said.
Wednesday's win did provide some confidence, though, as WSU has won two of its last three games.
"It's good momentum going into another game and we've got the confidence of a winning team and we want to go in there and get another one," said WSU guard Damian Lillard, who leads WSU with 20.8 points per game.
The reason the Big Sky is starting league play this weekend is because it has a 10-week conference schedule, however there are only nine weekends from Jan. 1 to March 6, which is when the conference tournament begins. The schools opted to play league contests this weekend, rather than playing the first week of conference games while the student-athletes are dealing with finals week prior to the holiday break.
The Big Sky faced a similar situation last season and had conference games scheduled in December, but most schools found a way to move them to later in the season.
That was why Weber State and Idaho State played twice within three days. The teams were originally scheduled to play once that week, but they moved their game from December to that week instead.
While facing league opponents so soon may not be what the Wildcats want, they are happy about starting the league season on the road.
"I've always thought there's more pressure on the home team that first conference game," Rahe said. "What we try to do in conference is, you've got to hold down your home court and just go steal as many as you can on the road. We're going to look at it as a chance to go steal one right off the bat, and that's what it is, a steal if you can get one on the road."
The Wildcats, who finished last season with a 15-1 mark in the Big Sky, became the first team in the league's history to go 8-0 on the road.
"We always like getting on the road, last year we did real well on the road in conference so it will be a good chance to get the team's identity," said WSU's Darin Mahoney. "We're going to be a good team on the road again."
So what was their secret to winning away from home?
"We just tried to come out and play as hard as we could," Mahoney said.
"There's going to be a lot of adversity on the road. You may not get all the calls on the road but if you play hard you'll make up for all the mistakes."
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