For one night, one long, cold night, the CSU Rams are going to have to do the unholy. The unfathomable. The unthinkable. The unforgivable.
They’ve going to have to root for … the CU Buffs.
March Madness, indeed.
Here’s the juice: The Rams (18-6) lost to Utah State in the Mountain West tourney semis late Friday evening. About an hour before that, the Buffs (22-7) knocked off USC to advance to the Pac-12 tournament championship.
CU, the league’s 3 seed, will take on conference bracket-buster Oregon State (16-12) at 8:30 p.m Saturday for all of Larry Scottap marbles, or however many marbles he’s got left.
Itap the Beavers — a No. 5 seed that upset rival Oregon in the league semifinals — who’ve made it weird. The only way Oregon State is crashing the NCAA Tournament is by beating CU and snatching the Pac-12’s automatic berth to the Big Dance.
And the last thing CSU needs right now, anywhere, is a bid-stealer.
By all accounts, especially the accounts of CBS brackeologist Jerry Palm and ESPN prognosticator Joe Lunardi, the Rams are clinging to the slickest, scariest part of the NCAA bubble.
At breakfast time on Saturday, Palm projected CSU as matching up Drake from the Missouri Valley — the team coach Niko Medved coached right before coming to Fort Collins — with the Rams in a First Four contest. Lunardi, meanwhile,
The margin for error? Gone. Medved and his Rams — who boasted a good-but-not-quite-a-slam-dunk national of 51 before lunch on Saturday — want chalk now. A lot of it.
Especially at the Big East tourney, where scrappy Georgetown (12-12) on Saturday will be trying to spoil Creighton’s party in the championship game. And at the Pac-12 title tilt in Vegas, where — and I know it sounds weird — the site of CU celebrating would be a welcome visage for Rams faithful, too.
Regardless, CSU figures to be sweating Sunday something fierce. Despite the presence of Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson among its members, the NCAA tourney selection committee isn’t expected to do Thompson’s league any tangible favors on the bracket front.
A Hoyas upset pushes a bubble team out of the field. A Hoyas win and a Beavers victory over CU removes two bubblers from the big board.
So what the heck.
Say it with us, CSU faithful:
GO BUFFS!
There. Was that so hard?
Geez, you look a little … pale.
Hey, we get it. One minute it feels like sacrilege. The next, itap like poking yourself repeatedly in the eye with a pointy stick.
But if CU star McKinley Wright can extend an olive branch toward FoCo, can’t y’all do the same in return? For one night?
“I’m hoping (CSU) gets in the tournament,” said Wright, a Minneapolis native who’s pals with the Minnesotans on the Rams bench, including gifted forward David Roddy.
“I hate them when we play against them, but when we don’t play them, I’m rooting for them, man. I watched a lot of their games this year. I’m a fan. And I’ve got good relationships with some guys on that team, so I’m hoping they get in.”
Hoping?
One of the greatest Buffs ever to lace ‘em up for the gold and black is secretly a … Rams devotee?
Madness, I tell ya. Absolute madness.
