The Bobcat Nation

I was wondering if anyone could tell me a little bit about the Big Sky and the success our teams have had in the NCAA Tournament.

What is the best seed a BSC team has ever received?

Has a BSC team ever won a game?

Perhaps even an overall record of the BSC in the NCAA Tournament?

These are approximate years. Weber ALWAYS seemed to win their first round game and lose to UCLA in the late 60s and early 70s. In 77 ISU beat UCLA enroute to the elite 8; in 81 Idaho made the sweet 16, rose as high as #8 in the polls and made the elite 8 in 82. Somewhere during Jud Heathcote's time up over the hill, that liberal snake den beat Utah State in a first round game and lost to UCLA--think that was about 75 when Don Wetzel played for them. I think at least one of the Selvigs was on that team from that huge town of Outlook. Virtually that entire team was small school kids and McKenzie from Canada. But that was during the time right after the break up of the Big 32 and only about 16-24 B schools--almost the entire state was Class C. Those are the only years I remember and sorry, I've never followed the girls teams very well.

Oh yeah, just forgot that Weber's won a couple of first round games the last ten years or so most recently beating North Carolina. One of their second round games they got beat by Georgetown on a last second slop and lucky tip in...

Overall record in the tourney for the Big Sky is 16-49, but almost all the wins came before the tourney expanded to 64 teams in '85. Since '85, the only two wins for the Big Sky were by Weber in '95 over Mich State and '99 over North Carolina. Almost all of the wins are by ISU (8 ) and Weber (6). Idaho and Montana each won one.

Since '85, the highest seed given to a Big Sky team was 13, which has happened multiple times, including MSU in '96.

Another question, has there ever been more than one team in the NCAA Tournament from the BSC?

1976 3 teams made it.

kind of related: does anyone know much about how the WCC got on the map? what approach did gonzaga take in building a quality program year-in/year-out? it seems like the whole conference has began stepping it up a notch to match them.

from a BSC persepective, it doesn't seem like the league has really defined itself at all. there isn't one school making a push to a higher level and pulling other people with them. over a period of several years, most of the teams just seem to bumble around in mediocrity. there doesn't seem to be much correlation b/w who is good in the regular season and who wins the tourney, either. i'm just thinking out loud, i guess, but how can the league (and the teams therein) make themselves better?

Until our nationally ridiculed officials are eliminated and replaced with competent, knowledgeable and HIGHLY ETHICAL people, we as a conference are screwed

Cat Grad wrote:Until our nationally ridiculed officials are eliminated and replaced with competent, knowledgeable and HIGHLY ETHICAL people, we as a conference are screwed

AMEN to that. BTW, did anyone else see one of the BSC's most beloved officials Eric Curry screwing up calls in Charlotte in the MSU vs. Stanford first round game? What a farce.

mquast53000 wrote:Another question, has there ever been more than one team in the NCAA Tournament from the BSC?

Since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only one BSC team has made the field each year (all auto-bids, of course).