The Bobcat Nation

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap ... s/?p=10112 Pre-game UNC blog

Lets get the home sweep Cats!!!

Really good first half for MSU. Up 48-33 at the half. Dison was on fire!

As fast as they build a 19 point lead in the 2nd half, the let NC go on a 10-0 run in less than 2 minutes. Its now a 9 point lead. Missed shot, turn over, missed shot. See what happens from here

Cats win 84-72. Nice to see them do a (somewhat) better job of not giving us all heart attacks tonight! Great to see the team improving and winning some games. Not sure if they can go through UM and Weber this year, but next year looks very promising with Lillard finally being out of the league and only Singleton & Allou leaving to graduation.

free chalupas...

MSU01 wrote:Cats win 84-72. Nice to see them do a (somewhat) better job of not giving us all heart attacks tonight! Great to see the team improving and winning some games. Not sure if they can go through UM and Weber this year, but next year looks very promising with Lillard finally being out of the league and only Singleton & Allou leaving to graduation.

i agree we should be pretty good next year and maybe can win some more games this year. hope so anyway. but i'm pretty sure lilliard is only a junior so unless he declares for the nba.....we'll have to put up with him again.

Wow, you are right...I could have sworn he has been around longer than that! I would think the chances of him going pro are quite high though, especially after the success Stuckey has had going from the Big Sky to the NBA.

The Cats were shooting well from behind the arc tonight. Their overall shooting percentage wasn't great but they kept putting the ball in the basket when we needed to. 13 three pointers on the night is amazing. I just hope in a close game we don't have to rely on 3's to keep us in the game. I know some Cat teams in the past did just that, lived and died by they 3, and things did go so well in the end.

It was raining threes in the Fieldhouse tonight! Big contributions from role players Dison and Budnich-who killed any UNC runs with three pointers. Dison was hot all game long and Budnich hit three threes in the second half. Allou had two big drives for layups as well to help hold them off.

Had a 15 point lead at the half and got outscored by three in the second half-no big deal. But it was troubling that we gave up so many layups in the second half. Both teams were playing well offensively at that point.

Sitting at 5-2 in the league-probably need just one more league win to get in the tournament.

Before we get to feeling too good remember that Huse's teams win most of their games in January and lose most of them in February-kind of like the second halves of this 5-6 winning trend where we've been outscored in every second half.

But this was a great weekend-two key wins. The team should be really happy with that and the way they're coming together.

MSU01 wrote:Wow, you are right...I could have sworn he has been around longer than that! I would think the chances of him going pro are quite high though, especially after the success Stuckey has had going from the Big Sky to the NBA.

It's because he got a medical hardship year after last season. He would be a senior this year, but went down against in the non-conference season vs. Tulsa (happened to catch that game back when channelsurfing.net was still up on the web) and didn't play another game. In a smart scheduling move, WSU played Saint Mary's after the BSC tourney was over, as they needed one more game in which he didn't play in order for him to be eligible for the medical hardship.

MSU wins third straight ~13 3-pointers, minimal turnovers offset a bad night on defense as Bobcats move to 3rd in BSC http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/sp ... 3ce6c.html

grizzh8r wrote:

MSU01 wrote:Wow, you are right...I could have sworn he has been around longer than that! I would think the chances of him going pro are quite high though, especially after the success Stuckey has had going from the Big Sky to the NBA.

It's because he got a medical hardship year after last season. He would be a senior this year, but went down against in the non-conference season vs. Tulsa (happened to catch that game back when channelsurfing.net was still up on the web) and didn't play another game. In a smart scheduling move, WSU played Saint Mary's after the BSC tourney was over, as they needed one more game in which he didn't play in order for him to be eligible for the medical hardship.

All true... I think though it is better than 50/50 that he goes to the NBA, most mocks have him as a first-rounder.

Heck of a win for the Bobcats to beat a decent UNC team. Now a tough road stretch, going to PSU and EWU... if they can get a split, they will be sitting real pretty at 6-3.

The heck with a split. We need to sweep these games. I am tired of hearing people talk about mediocraty. Coach Durham started it and Coach Huse does it as well. We need to raise expectations. Why can't we be like Creighton or Butler or Murray St? Why can't we compete with St Mary's or Gonzaga? It is time to raise the bar a little bit and start competing for NCAA tournament appearances and eventually wins.
I'm glad I got that off my chest. It has bothered me for years.

dwainegf wrote:Why can't we be like Creighton or Butler or Murray St? Why can't we compete with St Mary's or Gonzaga? It is time to raise the bar a little bit and start competing for NCAA tournament appearances and eventually wins.
I'm glad I got that off my chest. It has bothered me for years.

Lots of reasons, but the biggest of which is money and financial commitment to the basketball team. Butler, Creighton, St. Mary's, and Gonzaga are all big money private schools who don't have football and thus commit a huge majority of their athletic budgets to Men's basketball. Look at how much the coaches of those schools make compared to Huse. Also, that disparity is also seen in locker rooms, facilities, recruiting...etc.

Murray State is a bit of the outlier in this group, and I'm not really familier with them.

It would be great to get to that level, but right now, I'd settle for just being at Weber State's level in bball. Once again, though, they are a bball school with a bball culture.

I understand the "money" thing. It is still just an excuse for mediocraty. We have a great campus, a really good school, Bozeman is a "nice" town. Sell those points and start going after better players. Find the Montana kids to develop and incorperate them into the program. Find freshmen to build their skills and only get JC transfers to fill glaring holes. I believe it can get done. Look at what Coach Ash has done with football and copy it. That has a chance to work. Continue to do what we've been doing for the last 40 years and you will get those same old results.

dwainegf wrote:I understand the "money" thing. It is still just an excuse for mediocraty. We have a great campus, a really good school, Bozeman is a "nice" town. Sell those points and start going after better players. Find the Montana kids to develop and incorperate them into the program. Find freshmen to build their skills and only get JC transfers to fill glaring holes. I believe it can get done. Look at what Coach Ash has done with football and copy it. That has a chance to work. Continue to do what we've been doing for the last 40 years and you will get those same old results.

Good points, but I don't think any of these things are secrets that Brad Huse is unaware of.

Who are some of the Montana recruits in the past 4-5 years that we should have gone after, but didn't? Who are the in-state recruits we should currently be offering scholarships?

Does Coach Huse not sell the points of MSU being a good school and Bozeman being nice? I'd bet he sells the quality of academics and community of Bozeman pretty strongly.

Who are some out of state freshmen that we could have gotten commitments from, but we didn't go after them? Who are some of the out-of-state high school players we should be offering right now, but haven't?

[youtube][/youtube]
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap ... s/?p=10123 UNC postgame blog

MSU01 wrote:Wow, you are right...I could have sworn he has been around longer than that! I would think the chances of him going pro are quite high though, especially after the success Stuckey has had going from the Big Sky to the NBA.

Wishful Thinking, but I'm with ya!