By Matt Reichman The Daily Universe

March 17, 2008

Provo, UT (UWIRE) -- After 31 games and a conference tournament on top, the training wheels are coming off. The Cougars are going as a No. 8 seed to the NCAA Tournament, and the almosts, should'ves and would'ves of the season suddenly don't matter. On the pitiless national stage, the routes by which the 65 squads arrived is moot, and even the bullies will get bullied; the Cougars have nothing more to worry about than the game they've grown up playing.

BYU begins the single-elimination affair at 5:25 p.m. (MT) Thursday against No. 9 seed Texas A&M. The teams will face off in Anaheim, Calif., as part of the NCAA bracket's West Region.

"The main thing we were hoping for was to get ourselves in a position where we would get in the tournament, be able to play and compete, and stay a little closer to home, so I think those are all good things," BYU coach Dave Rose said.

The seeding is lower than many had hoped, or even expected, but the Cougars' loss to UNLV in the final round of the MWC Tournament evened the score between the league's front-runners, who will both enter the NCAA tourney as eight seeds. BYU has now earned three No. 8 seeds and three No. 12 seeds since the No. 7 seed season of 1993, the last time the Cougars won an NCAA Tournament game.

"We're a really good basketball team when we play like how we play," Rose said. "What we need to do is be able to not have the distraction and the stage and all the different things of the tournament to change the way we play."

Last year, the Cougars traveled to Lexington, Ky., where they lost a 79-77 nailbiter to No. 9 seed Xavier. Unanimous among the team members is the feeling that the squad has grown since then, and sunny Anaheim is an ideal locale to prove it.

"It's in southern California, where we have a good fan base," Rose said.

The Texas A&M Aggies hail from the Big 12 Conference, where they've put together an 8-8 conference record with a 24-10 record overall. The two schools have met just once on the basketball court - a BYU win back in 1972 - so the players know little more about their opponents beyond what they've caught on television.

"I know they have a big guy in DeAndre Jordan," BYU freshman Jimmer Fredette said. "He's a freshman, a real big guy and a real athletic post guy. He's going to be a handful, but other than that, I don't know a whole lot."

The 7-foot Jordan can be counted on for 8.2 points per game and a team-high 6.2 rebounds per game, so a lot is riding on his matchup with BYU's 6-foot-11 center Trent Plaisted and backup Chris Miles. Plaisted, a San Antonio, Texas, native, is pretty familiar with the Aggies.

"My best friend of all time, other than my wife, obviously, goes to Texas A&M, and he's like a die-hard, Texas A&M, paint-your-chest kind of a guy," he said. "He actually texted me and told me he was torn, and didn't know quite who to root for."

The Cougars would have preferred to travel to California with a MWC Tournament Championship in their wake, but aren't wasting any time or tears. Minutes after the NCAA announced their selections, the BYU coaching staff was doing its homework on Texas A&M. The players will hit the gym Monday looking forward, an attitude Rose believes has won them games.

"We'll try to put last night [Saturday's loss] behind us and get back to believing in how great we are," BYU junior guard Lee Cummard said.

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