Cats' ex-benchmen embraced leadership

OGDEN — To say Weber State exceeded expectations might be an understatement — a really big understatement.

The Wildcats started with a new coach, a blown-up team assembled by Randy Rahe after most of the top recruits — heck, even most of the mid-tier recruits — had long since been picked up by other schools, and only two players returning from the previous team.

"When this all started, my honest hope was just to qualify for the Big Sky tournament. That's all," Rahe said after the season wrapped up with the Wildcats in the NCAA tourney playing eventual Final Four team UCLA in the first round. "I tried not to get my hopes up too much because I really didn't know what to expect."

What Rahe got was a Big Sky championship in his first season with the Wildcats. He transformed an in-the-doghouse player into a league MVP and got his rag-tag team of players to play as one.

Predicted by coaches and media to finish no better than sixth, Weber State swept its first road trip of the conference schedule and slowly started to change its expectations.

"I wasn't too excited about those wins," Rahe said. "It was good to get them, but I knew it would take more wins than that to get into the conference tournament. I thought we'd need at least eight wins to feel safe.

"Even then, it took more than eight to get in," he said. "Look at Eastern Washington. They were 8-8 and stayed home."

So, the Wildcats didn't allow themselves to celebrate anything until there were just two weeks left in the season and they finally secured a conference tournament berth.

"It wasn't until then that we said, 'Let's go finish this thing,"' Rahe said.

David Patten, who often found himself sent to the bench with former coach Joe Cravens, was asked by Rahe to become a low-post player instead of a perimeter shooter. He was also asked to grab control of the team and be a senior leader.

Along with Dan Henry, the team's only other senior and only other player returning from the last-place 2005-06 team, Patten embraced the role and flourished. The 6-foot-8 forward paced the team in scoring with 14.2 points while breaking the school record for dunks in a season with 54.