The Bobcat Nation

Good exhibition opponent for our team. Plus one of the Mt. Rushmore's of Bobcat hoops will be on the other bench today. Congratulations to Mick Durham for an outstanding career in the game of college basketball.

Nice complement for Mick Durham from Sprinkle in this article about the game…..


https://msubobcats.com/news/2022/10/25/ ... ition.aspx

Any chance this is going to be streamed online?

Not really impressive so far. Fuller is a statue down low. Gets the ball and doesn't move.

Shooting has been really bad. 3 for 18 from the arc. But I really like our guards. Athletic and smart. Belo and Great will be forces. Raequan is going to be a handful. Lekolat is smart and plays hard. Patrick hasn’t been able to get into a groove yet but he looks comfortable and confident. Patterson will average 3 to 4 threes per game. Biggest issue will be spreading minutes around. We are deep.

Of bigger concern is how quiet the crowd is. The student section has maybe 5 kids in it. Hard for any player to get up in this environment today.

Glad that Durham's MSU-B team finally is coming back to Bozeman. Durham has been a bit of a legend in my mind. I remember in Junior High watching the High School game with the Wolves of Three Forks lighting up the gym in Harlowton. Durham had a 40+ point night and EVERYTHING was from downtown and before the three point shot. He would have had over 50 easy in today's game.

That was in the same era as Vicki Heebner. Three Forks has some fantastic basketball history.

Always followed his basketball career and hoped for his success.

This game is just sad.

I know this is just the first game, but the Cats have a long way to go.

4-24 from 3 with 3:50 to go. Can't make the two footers either. Ahead by 4 but Billings can easily win this.

Cats win 56-49. Sloppy game. 4-25 from 3.

Yikes, I was disappointed to hear this wouldn't be on ESPN+ but maybe that was a good thing! Loved the video clip of former Durham players they posted before the game.

Games like this are ego levelers. We are preseason favorites. Human nature is that our guys would believe that. Our fans also are exhibiting that. I believe this game is a good thing. We need to put out a huge amount of effort to repeat last year's results. Hopefully this game will be a catalyst to push our team into exerting the required effort. I know our coaches will use it for motivation. I hope they get the players to buy in. Go Cats!!!

It is what it is. Those kids from MSU-B are all (or mostly) on scholarship too. It's not like we struggled against a doormat, but yes the boys will need to improve for next week's true opener at GCU!!

I am not worried. MSU is D2, not NAIA and they are solid. There was no energy in the arena. The crowd had a couple thousand but barely made a sound. No students showed up. Our guys were flat and who could blame them? I can definitely see our talent though. Brown and Ford are good and will get the offense going. Let’s see how GCU goes on Monday.

Yeah that was woeful. Both teams were really bad on offense. The Bobcats couldn't make anything inside or outside. Our threes looked like knuckle balls. Really good Great Northwest teams have the talent to give any Big Sky team trouble on any given night and MSUB is a good GNAC team. Durham has more talent over there on his current team than some of his bad Bobcat teams back in the day (and he had a few bad teams). I'm used to seeing the polished and in sync Bobcats of late last season. This bunch has a lot of chemistry to work on. Right now there's no new comers that are even close to what Xavier Bishop, Amin Adamu, or Abdul Mohamed were last year.

Starters were Belo, Lecholat, Battle, Patterson, and Brown. Osobor doesn't start because he needs to back up Belo in case of early fouls. Osobor was very active inside, but couldn't get much to fall. Belo was triple team the second he got the ball. He was frustrated and Sprinkle kept him on the bench down the stretch. Belo won't have any freedom if the other players can't hit wide open shots.

Defense was pretty good. MSUB shot it even worse than the Bobcats except they did hit a three here and there. Battle is a next level athlete. He's always wide open on his jump shot because can jump so high. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up as our leading scorer this season.

Exhibition games are not going to spark much student enthusiasm. Question since I wasn't able to watch. How many players did we play. Was it a fluid rotation or look like we were just trying to get a lot of guys in and try multiple combinations

A great tribute to Coach Durham.

https://twitter.com/msubobcats/status/1 ... mYpWJbb13A

tetoncat wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:44 pm

Exhibition games are not going to spark much student enthusiasm. Question since I wasn't able to watch. How many players did we play. Was it a fluid rotation or look like we were just trying to get a lot of guys in and try multiple combinations

Germer, Ash, Colceag and Miller did not get in. Everyone else seemed to get equal minutes. He tried different combinations on the floor with Belo and Osobor rotating at the post.

They looked a little slow at times I thought on defense. Sam looked good, but had some jitters you could see. I wasn't impressed with Ford, but Darius looked solid. I think they are lacking a big scorer like x was. but I can see Ray becoming that person, but he seems a little hesitant sometimes and I worry about him getting hurt with all the driving and athletic plays. He is definitely next level talent though and made some amazing moves. The rest of the team all struggled at times out there especially Belo as they collapsed on him and he couldn't do anything down low. The outside shooters have to be on or we will struggle I believe. I believe Danny will have to go through the bench nightly to figure who that spark will be per game as I don't see a consistent 17pt+ scorer out there every game. I think the kid from AK can be a major player and needs to push his confidence as he had a great block and had some nice moves, but needs to keep going at the rim with his athleticism I think he could be a 10pt+ scorer this year. Also the Germer kid looked like he bulked up a ton and wondering if he will see some time. Also looking forward to see what Sprinkler does with the freshman shooter. I think it depends if Tyler can step it up as if not we need that other big three point threat. Looking forward to seeing how they do this year.
GO CATS!

tetoncat wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:44 pm

Exhibition games are not going to spark much student enthusiasm. Question since I wasn't able to watch. How many players did we play. Was it a fluid rotation or look like we were just trying to get a lot of guys in and try multiple combinations

Did they have the band or cheerleaders? They can make a big difference. Sunday afternoon games don’t pull students at all, nor do exhibition games. Not surprised the noiseshed was not threatened.