The Bobcat Nation

Tomorrow night's game at Flaggstaff will be an interesting affair for the Lady Bobcats. How many times does a coach have to coach against two former players that she recruited and started? I see where Lea Beattie and Grace Beasley are both averaging in double digits, about 11 points each.

It seems to me that this will be a difficult game for Coach Binford. Especially if NAU wins. The whole thing just strikes me as very unusual.

Tranfers are common these days, but when it happens within your own conference it is kind of awkward I would think.

I thought the Bobcats might be facing three former players this weekend, but it appears that Sydney Stensgard is no longer on the roster for Northern Colorado. There have been a fair number of recent Big Sky to Big Sky transfers in WBB. Tiana Johnson from Sac State to Idaho and Gina Marxen from Idaho to UM being two recent examples in addition to Beattie and Beasley. I believe the last time MSU got a transfer from inside the conference was with Fallyn Freije from North Dakota, although I believe UND had left the Big Sky by the time Fallyn sat out her transfer year and played for MSU.

I'm sure Coach Binford will handle the NAU game with professionalism as she always does, although privately I'm sure there might be a little extra drive to win this one on both sides!

I hope as many ‘Cat fans as possible can/will go to this game. It’s approximately 142 miles (think Bozeman to Billings) from Phoenix and lots of Bobcats. We were planning to drive over from Nevada but our plans were disrupted. Coach Binford is the best ever and will handle this with her usual professionalism. It might be more fraught with emotion for the players. I do know they would all appreciate some friendly blue and gold in the seats. Go, ‘Cats!!!

Can't forget where the NAU coach played high school basketball either. It was really strange watching four Montana natives on the North Dakota State football coaching staff.

Wonder why it took the MSU leadership so many years to give Sprinkle a chance? Hope he continues after this start in Logan.

A life well lived is the best revenge...

This is a tough road trip. I see the team left a day earlier this year than last, with a planned stay over along the way and into Flagstaff today. Then after the game Thursday a long bus to Phoenix and flight north to Denver and another bus to Greeley….probably into Greeley on Friday.

Thursday night against NAU will be another test to see how good our D really is this year. Remember NAU was favored to win conference in pre-season polls “for whatever its worth”. NAU likes the offensive game and leads the Big Sky in scoring at 78 ppg….but on the reverse they tend to forget there is defense to be played because they rank last in Big Sky on points scored against at 75 ppg allowed (good example last week allowing SDSU to score 88 in regulation (110 if you include OTs) and NDSU to score 99 on them). They’ve got 4 ladies that average in double figures including Beattie and Beasley as mentioned above. Beasley continues to throw the ball away and leads the team in turnovers. They love to run the ball and may have 4 girls in fast break mode at the rebound so it is going to be critical for Cats that we know assignments and who is crashing boards and who has back protection and we can keep fresh legs on the floor. I don’t doubt Beattie and Beasley will be trying to prove something that they deserved to be starting for Cats so will have extra incentive to show us their stuff and make a statement. Like noted above I think Coach Bin will try to keep the emotions out of the game, managing the game plan, and be more concerned about having a full complement to play in the altitude…..what was she saying in post game interview at SDSU…something like she had seven girls in shape to play at end of game due to misc injuries and ailments. Limardo, one of our top defenders, was listed as day to day so if she is not a go or is not at full speed it could hurt our defensive effort….but the rest of team stepped up and did a pretty decent job against the Jackrabbits holding them to 61 points while being short handed.

Now how good has our defense been this year? I looked at some of the stats….Ladies currently rank in top 3 in conference in FG defense, 3-pt defense, blocks, turnovers forced, and steals. We currently rank 3rd best in conference at allowing only 58 ppg. Just for kicks and giggles the best year ever for our defense was the 1986-87 team which allowed 59.4 ppg through a whole season. We sit here at midway through season with a pretty good defensive effort.

If our defense performs well and offense (61 ppg) can get going a bit better we’ve got a chance…..but home court probably favors NAU.

I would have thought UNC was a fairly certain win. But UNC battled NAU to within 4 points in a loss and Cats may be road weary for the game on Saturday. We’ll see.

Go Cats!

FUN FACTS!!!

MSU Women's Basketball Team has-

- given up over 70 Points just 2 times this year (ASU and Portland)
- Held NDSU (who averaged 72 points a game) to 45 Points
-MSU is #1 in Opponent Field Goal percentage (36%)
-MSU is #2 in Opponent 3 Point percentage (27%)
-MSU has only given up over 60 Points in 1 game in their last 8 Games (SDSU 61)

That was a great writeup BobcatDel. Going against those 2 former teammates will be very interesting to watch. I can picture at least one of those 2 trying a little too hard and having some control issues. I hope that the Bobcats are prepared to take some vicious charges and physical play. We could sure use a good defensive showing from Ella J and Brooke B along with the rest of the team, also hoping they can take advantage of NAU's porous defense too. This game isn't a make or break for the season but a win here would sure serve notice to the conference that the Cats are looking to make some noise this year.

Thanks for the fun facts SacCat. I think if the Bobcats can perform close to those fun facts they'll end up with a good chance to get the W, and that would be really fun. Looking forward to this game, GO CATS!

Well well, the good news, Limardo is back. The bad news, Dykstra & Hein are out. According to the radio.

arvcat2 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 11, 2024 6:51 pm

Well well, the good news, Limardo is back. The bad news, Dykstra & Hein are out. According to the radio.

Where are all of our players?!??

We lose by 15. Boy you sure can't go on comparative scores. Montana State beat North Dakota State by 21 points. North Dakota State beat NAU by 26.

Go figure.

aucat wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 11, 2024 9:19 pm

We lose by 15. Boy you sure can't go on comparative scores. Montana State beat North Dakota State by 21 points. North Dakota State beat NAU by 26.

Go figure.

I’m pretty sure I heard the announcers say we only had a four deep bench. Not sure what’s going on, i’m assuming a bug of some sort.

bobcatfan15 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 11, 2024 9:40 pm

aucat wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 11, 2024 9:19 pm

We lose by 15. Boy you sure can't go on comparative scores. Montana State beat North Dakota State by 21 points. North Dakota State beat NAU by 26.

Go figure.

I’m pretty sure I heard the announcers say we only had a four deep bench. Not sure what’s going on, i’m assuming a bug of some sort.

Well I've had something this past week that has sure sapped my energy so I can only imagine how a bug can affect a basketball player. UGH.

The lady Cats only had 9 players available for this game and 6 of those were freshman. They fought hard but were simply outgunned by NAU who had 5 upper classmen playing in their 4th or 5th year plus a total of 12 players available. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is the first time Katelynn Limardo has played 27 min. and gone scoreless from the field. She did make her 2 free throws. The good news is that young players like Berry, Johnson, Bunyan and Picton continue to emerge and develop as complete players. Malea Egan played some good minutes scoring 3 points and Lea Boulanger got her first college minutes and scored 3 points. By the end of the year Binford should have a very experienced and strong bench.
It would be nice if they could all get healthy sometime soon, they've gone through a lot and the season is only about half done.

Joe Bobcat wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 11, 2024 10:50 pm

The lady Cats only had 9 players available for this game and 6 of those were freshman. They fought hard but were simply outgunned by NAU who had 5 upper classmen playing in their 4th or 5th year plus a total of 12 players available. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is the first time Katelynn Limardo has played 27 min. and gone scoreless from the field. She did make her 2 free throws. The good news is that young players like Berry, Johnson, Bunyan and Picton continue to emerge and develop as complete players. Malea Egan played some good minutes scoring 3 points and Lea Boulanger got her first college minutes and scored 3 points. By the end of the year Binford should have a very experienced and strong bench.
It would be nice if they could all get healthy sometime soon, they've gone through a lot and the season is only about half done.

Boulanger is the second red shirt Coach has had to pull due to player availability. It was hoped both Johnson and Boulanger could red shirt this year but those are both gone now. On the positive side both should get minutes that will make them stronger next year…… but changes the landscape for future recruiting. This is really Coach Bins most challenging year since I’ve been watching WBB.

Tough game for Limardo as you mentioned. I wonder if she was 100% tonight? I only got to watch part of first quarter and we sure looked out of sync.

Just hope we can recover against UNC on Saturday but if the bench is down to 8 or 9 with 6 freshman that’s going to be tough too.

Get back home on Saturday night, get healthy and get ready for Cat-gris at home on 20th. IMO this may be gris year to sweep the Cats…

KJ maybe should not have been playing if we’d had someone else to replace her. She was clearly not herself yet. She leads the Big Sky in free throw attempts and makes but I only remember seeing her make one aggressive offensive move all game. I hope she heals soon, for her sake and the team — a full-force KJ is a force to be reckoned with. Forget this one. I was concerned about more injuries when I saw that the referee was none other than Arizona’s finest, Bob Scofield, but the players and NAU’s laissez-faire defense seemed to hold things in check. It was a pleasure to watch a less hockey-like game. Letting one player make six three-pointers (or was it seven) seemed a bit much but that’s a sign of our young players. I hope.