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February 20, 2008 - 10:13PM
Cougars get an advantage just by being in Pullman
Mark Heller, Tribune
Jeff Pendergraph has been through this before. The plane ride, the long bus ride through desolation, the weather, then another bus ride, another plane ride, then a third plane ride.
Playing against the Washington schools has been difficult enough for the Arizona State men's basketball team. The Sun Devils haven't won at Washington State since 2003, before the Bennett family turned the Cougars' program around. It's also the last time they beat Washington in Seattle.
Rural Pullman and WSU comes first this year, where arriving and departing are arduous tasks this time of year.
Teams typically fly into Spokane, then take a two-hour bus ride on a one-lane road south through mountains to Pullman.
"It's the middle of nowhere," Pendergraph said. "There's no city, there's nothing there. Drive for three hours and all of a sudden you're at the gym. It's like, 'Where is everything?'
"That's tough."
They're not done. There is a two-hour bus ride back to Spokane, then a flight to Seattle on Friday.
Pendergraph called the long trek Wazzou's biggest home-court advantage.
This "trip within a trip" is unique, since the other Pac-10 trips are two schools lumped together within easy reach of each other (USC-UCLA, ASU-Arizona, California-Stanford).
On the plus side for ASU (16-8, 6-6 Pac-10), there's plenty of time to catch up on sleep.
"It's hard to get there," said Ty Abbott, who otherwise said he enjoyed his visit to Pullman before deciding on ASU after New Mexico fired Ritchie McKay.
Canceled flights, road closures and blizzards are three more ever-lurking headaches for visiting schools who already have to deal with playing against a 20-win, 17th-ranked Cougars team on a three-game winning streak.
Ask USC, UCLA and Cal. They went through hours of waiting and backup plans earlier this winter.
"I've been hearing the talk of how it's a dull place and the fans there are crazy," freshman James Harden said. "I'm looking forward to just playing basketball."
If only it were so easy.
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