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Do you believe in omens?

The calendar read March 10, 2001 the last time BYU won a conference tournament basketball championship. The Cougars defeated New Mexico 69-65 in Las Vegas exactly 14 years ago today, but haven't been able to cut down the nets after a postseason tournament since then.

They will get another chance tonight, taking on No. 1 seed Gonzaga at 7 p.m. MDT on ESPN.

The Zags opened at 6.5-point favorites at the Palms, but the line quickly moved to 7.5, money obviously coming in on the seventh-ranked team in the country.

This will be BYU coach Dave Rose's fifth conference championship game; He was 0-4 in the others, losing in 2007 to UNLV (78-70), in 2008 to UNLV (76-61), in 2011 to San Diego State (72-54) and last year to Gonzaga (75-64).

"We know we have a huge challenge tomorrow," Rose said late Monday night after the Cougars routed Portland 84-70 in a semifinal game.

The Cougars played without Anson Winder, their third-leading scorer (13.1 ppg.) and best perimeter defender. I will be surprised if Winder plays tonight, although BYU is listing him as questionable.

"I don't know if he will be able to play tomorrow or not," Rose said after the Portland win. "If there is any way possible that he can, he will. … So, I feel for Ans. We are all hoping for the best. But we probably won't know until tomorrow."

Generally, BYU errs on the side of caution in these cases, so I don't expect the senior from Las Vegas to see the court tonight. We will see.

Winder wasn't much of a factor in BYU's 73-70 win at Gonzaga on Feb. 28. He scored just four points on 1 of 4 shooting in 24 minutes.

However, in the 87-80 loss to the Zags in Provo in late December, Winder had 17 points, and was 7-for-8 from the free-throw line, in 34 minutes.

The Cougars will miss him tonight, if he can't go.

With Winder ailing, Chase Fischer had his best game since the Jan. 17 outing at Saint Mary's when he scored 19 points on 5 of 12 3-point shooting.

If Fischer can come close to duplicating his 6-for-12 3-point shooting against the Pilots tonight against the Zags — who will be playing in their 18th consecutive conference championship game — the Cougars have a good chance of winning.

"Yeah, absolutely," Fischer said when asked if he could do it again. "As a group, we have a lot of confident players. The pace we play with allows us to score in bunches, and gives us confidence, so I think it is that way even when we are not hitting shots.

I think the first half was great. We had really good ball movement, so it was easy for everyone to get open and hit shots.

I think this group is special because we have been through so much and been through the ups and downs of the college basketball season, and we have fought our way back here. I think our chemistry and the closeness of this group makes our confidence go up a lot…… Obviously, I would like to make as many threes tomorrow as I did tonight, but for me, I am a big guy on making my first one. I kind of get in a rhythm from there, so yeah, I think it is sticking to your routine. … As a shooter sometimes you are going to make them, sometimes you are not. Tonight, I made them."