California JC POY Will be a Bobcat

[mslacat]

This just came over Antonio Biglow's Twitter Feed

A_Biglow24: I will be taking my talents to the Montana State University ima be ah #BOBCAT I'm happy with my decision

The California JC player of the year will be a Bobcats! Biglow is a 6-0 (being very generous) combo guard in the true sense of the word. He can score the ball in a wide variety of ways but can also dish when teams collapse on him. Biglow averaged 23 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assist, 3 steals, 55% field goal, 36% 3pt field goal, 74% free-throw. Fast athletic and aggressive. Ranked in the top 100 (#92) JC players in the country in Jucorecruiting.com season end ratings and ranked #23 in the nation by Jucojunction.com. As good as the two JC all-Americans that Huse has signed already (Jamie Stewart and Xavier Blount-Johnson) he does not take a back seat to either.

More later!

[SonomaCat]

If this is the same guy ... he looks like he'll be a LOT of fun to watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywS_TBdcgbI&NR=1

[mslacat]

That is him, but the video is of his high school days and about 2-3 years old.

[wbtfg]

Here is mslacat's write up on him from back in March.

http://mslacat.wordpress.com/2011/03/03 ... io-biglow/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CelticCat]

Well Huse is certainly adding some immediate talent to the squad for next year. With some of the younger talented players in the wings, we could be a pretty good team next year, if the team can mesh together. Still don't have a dominate big man, but have some options down low.

[bpcats]

Player like him look they were born to play basketball. Looks like he is a very smooth athlete with the ball. I think that Mslacat mentioned that this was Huse's top remaining recruiting target.

[mslacat]

Player like him look they were born to play basketball. Looks like he is a very smooth athlete with the ball. I think that Mslacat mentioned that this was Huse's top remaining recruiting target.

I don't know this for a fact but I would guess Biglow might have been Huse top target of the spring.

[TomCat88]

OK, I have to ask mslacat: What gives? Without doing any research it appears Huse has brought in four guys this year that are as good, coming in, as he's brought in during his previous years combined. How far off am I with that, albeit shallow, assessment?

[mslacat]

I hesitate to comment on the class until it is done, but it is safe to say that anyone of three JC guards (Biglow, Stewart, or Blount-Johnson) by themselves could be labeled better than any of the JC Huse has signed in his time at MSU. His JC big guy, Mohammad Fall, is more highly rated and thought of by the prognosticators, by far either Mbunga or Beye. As we all know though the ratings that Jucojunction.com or Jucorecruiting.com give a recruit means nothing once the recruits get on campus. In the case of Beye amd Mbunga they were incredibly under appreciated (and seen) by the scouts. One highly rated player can come in and fall flat on their face at any time, but if you can consistently recruit those players you can minimize the impact if one does fail.

To answer you question more directly I would have a hard time saying at this point that this class is better than all of the other classes combined. There are too many ways to compare. I really liked last years class. plus you have players like Rush (a big rabbit Huse pulled out of his hat), Howard and Mbunga who were all top notch recruits for the Bobcats.

As to why we are doing so well this year? I definitely think it has a lot to do with the three (OK now two) assistants being here for the for the past three year, plus they and Huse learning how to sell the program. When we lost Sprinkle and the other two assistants all in the span of a couple month I think it really set back the program's recruiting efforts. I think we could have handled the loss of anyone of them but, but all three was devastating. The following year we struggled to recruit, mightily, last year we bounced back and I thought we found a star recruiter (no pun intended) in Temesghen and Carson is also doing a great job! The two coaches have a different style, Starr is younger and relates/connects to the players so well. Carson on the other hand recruits the family and parents. The improvement I see in Huse and his coaches is learning how to sell Bozeman, MSU and the basketball program. Starner (yes I am going way back) once told me that figuring out how to sell MSU was the key to recruiting here. Bozeman can be a difficult place to convince a kid to come and live especially if they from "warmer climates". I believe the coaching staff is selling that you will work hard but in the end you will be a better person and you will get a degree among other things.

[Helcat72]

I think Huse is hitting the JC ranks hard for the simple reason that time is running out and he needs to show improvement in the program ASAP....Building a winning team with freshmen would be nice, but it ain't gonna happen in the mid major's in the northwest. To get a good big man as a freshman is almost impossible unless he can't walk and chew gum at the same time and the coach has time to teach him! The JC route is almost necessary for that. To recruit a top guard or small forward is a lot easier, but the chance a lot of coaches take are those kids who show some promise but are not sure things at the next level (e.g. Eric Rush). Sometimes you luck out and get a Damian Lillard or develop a Devon Beitzel but that happens more frequently at a Weber State rather than MSU. I think about a 50 - 50 mixture of transfers and players recruited as freshmen are what is best in the Big Sky. Building a team from freshmen is an anomaly here rather than a rule.

[bpcats]

The Bobcats may be able put together a quick turnaround with this influx of talent. For all the team struggles last year with rebounding, post presence etc. the biggest factor was lack of consistent scoring team wide. The guys would get good looks most of the time but hitting the mid range jumper was almost anemic. When the team could put together some scoring they showed they could play with anybody even with struggles down low.

How far this goes in the conference tournament will depend on how well Tre Johnson, Budinich and Fall develop over the summer and during the season. It seems that the new players brought in a the guard positions are pretty consistent in their scoring ability that should carry us to the top half to conference alone.

What will be interesting is to see how Chris McCall develops. He is still a little bit of a mystery to me but it seems like he has a lot of upside and may just need playing time.

Either way it would be nice if we had a deep bench to keep the pressure on for the full game.

[mslacat]

I think Huse is hitting the JC ranks hard for the simple reason that time is running out and he needs to show improvement in the program ASAP....Building a winning team with freshmen would be nice, but it ain't gonna happen in the mid major's in the northwest. To get a good big man as a freshman is almost impossible unless he can't walk and chew gum at the same time and the coach has time to teach him! The JC route is almost necessary for that. To recruit a top guard or small forward is a lot easier, but the chance a lot of coaches take are those kids who show some promise but are not sure things at the next level (e.g. Eric Rush). Sometimes you luck out and get a Damian Lillard or develop a Devon Beitzel but that happens more frequently at a Weber State rather than MSU. I think about a 50 - 50 mixture of transfers and players recruited as freshmen are what is best in the Big Sky. Building a team from freshmen is an anomaly here rather than a rule.

I would agree with most of what you said but with a couple caveats, Mainly I think you need to mix into that the coaches were a little opportunistic with their recruiting choices this year meaning they were after a few high level (for Big Sky standards) a few high school guys who they I think they would have signed in a heart beat. I think they were close to a few guys like Askia Booker(Colorado), CJ Cooper (UTEP), and Colin Woods (Cal Irvine) but in the end these guys wanted to go to the highest school possible or stay close to home. They would have been impact player in the Big Sky. The coaches were getting more traction at the JC level with those top tier recruited and that is the direction they went.

As far as big men goes (and this goes for my Griz buddies also) we do not seem to be very impatient with our big guy. It always seems to be a grass is greener situation. I keep hearing about we need to get some. I have heard quite a few people who keep telling me how unimpressed with players like Budnich and yet at the same time they want MSU to recruit more true big guys (6-9 or better). Guys like Jeff Budnich, Cody Anderson, Eric Hutchison have and will be the bread and butter of the Big Sky " true big men" recruits for the near future. Yea every, couple of years or so hopefully we can find/steal that rare player in the Big Sky that has of good size, highly skilled and good to great athleticism, but by in large we are going to need to look at guys who have 2 of these 3 or low level of each. Back to the Budinich (or Hutchison if you are from the dark side) example, keep in he just came off his freshman year. I keep pointing to Brandon Johnson as a perfect example, it takes time to develop these guys, keep in mind what you see now and judge them on how much they improve. Brandon certainly had his faults his freshman and Sophomore year but we had a real nice player by the time he was a junior and senior. I would take that in a minute.

[duelalumnicat]