2008 Woodie Awards
Sweet 16 begins this weekend
Clarence Plank
Issue date: 12/6/07 Section: Sports
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"They're not as big as Louisville; they're athletic," Head Coach Matt Peck said. "They're an aggressive team. They play more of our style. They did a similar thing like we did by upsetting Washington to get into the Sweet 16. We upset Hawaii. They couldn't win their conference. UNLV won their conference, I'm not sure what happened with that, and they have a few more losses than we do. So they tend to have some not so great games. I think it's going to be a great match."
BYU is a mirror image of MT and just like the Blue Raiders, it upset a higher-ranked team at home in No. 6 Washington. The Cougars have a 23-7 record coming into this weekend match.
"Whoever is playing better and not making forced errors," Peck said, "will win the match."
MT beat Louisville and Hawaii, which both teams were looking forward to the next opponent that they were going to be playing in the next round.
"We don't really make any kind changes to accommodate other teams," Peck said. "We focus on things we've been doing well or need to work on. Actually BYU is similar to us in the style compared to Louisville and Hawaii."
"It's a little bit easier preparing for them," Peck said. "We play and practice against each other every day. So we're just going to be tweaking things a little at the end. We're hoping to be sharp and on our game. After we get our practices out of the way, we'll be in pretty good shape."
MT faces a team who is playing in their first regional tournament since 2000, while the Blue Raiders are enjoying the experience of reaching their goal of advancing in the tournament this year.
This is the farthest MT has been in the NCAA Tournament in their third attempt. In 1995 MT lost in the first round to George Washington and last year they lost to Ohio State in the second round.
Coach Peck has guided a team to an NCAA national title before with the 2003 North Alabama in Division II-A team. Peck came to MT in 2004 and is currently in his third year as head coach for the Blue Raiders. He spent nine years with UNA before moving to MT.
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