A day before No. 27 Syracuse and No. 35 Wichita State were to play in the NCAA Tournament, Gabriela Knutson, Syracuse's top women's tennis player and the fifth-ranked singles player in the country, told Syracuse's student newspaper "it will be embarrassing" if Syracuse doesn't beat Wichita State.
It was ready-made bulletin-board material for the underdog Shockers, but coach Colin Foster decided against using it as a motivational ploy before Friday morning's match in Oxford, Miss.
"I knew we were ready and motivated enough," Foster said. "I didn't want that to be a distraction."
Foster's intuition proved correct, as WSU defeated Syracuse, 4-1, including two wins over Knutson on Friday to win its first NCAA Tournament match in Foster's nine years and just its second in program history (and first since 2007).