First off, I am eternally indebted to byubyu, who scored me 2 tickets to the game. My wife and I were up visiting Portland and Seattle this weekend. We flew in Thursday night to Portland and were able to go to the Portland game. We had thought about making the drive out to Spokane, but tickets were sooo much money (cheapest I ever saw them was $300 per ticket) that we were resigned to watching the game on TV from our hotel room. I got word on Friday afternoon that he could get 2 tickets to the Kennel, and the rest is history.

That building, the environment, the student section, and everything else is all that it is cracked up to be. Once you step inside there and feel the energy in that place, you come to appreciate even more the fact that BYU has pulled off 3 straight wins there, with 2 of them coming over top 3 GU teams. Every single Zag fan I interacted with was kind and welcoming. They really are such a big change from the type of fans we've grown accustomed to in the MWC. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have them as a new rival. I had an interesting conversation with a Zag after the game who was going off on Mark Few. He seemed pretty frustrated (obviously) and told me how frustrating it is that Few can't seem to get them "over the hump". It made me chuckle inside to think that fans of a team that was 29-0 going into this game with 16 WCC championships in the last 18 years and multiple sweet 16 appearances over the same period were saying these things about their coach. I guess, in a way, we are all the same as fans. What we have is never good enough.

I can't even describe how awesome it was to sit up in the rafters with a group of probably 50 BYU fans, screaming and yelling as complete silence came over the Kennel as the fans realized that it was happening for a 3rd straight year. You could feel the anxiety building in the fans for the entire second half. BYU is definitely in their heads at this point. The only other away game I've been to that even comes close to comparing to this is the @SDSU game in 2011. Bigtime performances on bigtime stages.

I really hope this can be a springboard game and propel BYU to maybe pull something off in Vegas. It's time for Dave Rose to get his first conference tourney championship.

Also, anyone who thinks that BYU fans are the only ones who boo refs incessantly for stuff they shouldn't be booed for needs to attend games in other bigtime environments like this one. When fans are invested and emotional about a game, they boo calls by the refs. The Zag fans were definitely no exception to this last night. I heard a number of conversations after the game where their fans were talking about how bad calls "cost them the game", etc.

Overall, such a cool experience and something my wife and I will never forget! Go Cougs!