Cat/Griz part deaux

[94VegasCat]

The Cats had a little surge with Dison in the gane. He plays with more urgency and energy than Singleton. Sure the Sr leadership/calmness is good, but Dison puts some fire in the team. Dison got us close then after a TV timeout, Singleton comes back and we are just flat and lethargic. Dison needs more playing time.
Singleton wastes too much time bringing the ball up court. Down 7 with 2 minutes to go and he walks it up court then turns it over after dribbling around for half of the shot clock. I just don't think he is situationally aware during critical moments.

[mt jack]

we won't have to worry about a loss to 1-14 NAU.

Yeah we do. Seriously.

No, you really don't, BelgradeBobcat. NAU will possibly hold it together for a half but this year's team has a hard time sustaining for a complete game. The Bobcats are simply better and more experienced this year. MSU wins and earns a conference tourney bid.

[BLACKnBLUEnGOLD]

We might not have had to worry, but as soon as anyone says "you don't have to worry," you have to worry. Jinx city. Start finding some wood to knock on. If you don't get to it tonight, you can start in the morning.

[BelgradeBobcat]

we won't have to worry about a loss to 1-14 NAU.

Yeah we do. Seriously.

No, you really don't, BelgradeBobcat. NAU will possibly hold it together for a half but this year's team has a hard time sustaining for a complete game. The Bobcats are simply better and more experienced this year. MSU wins and earns a conference tourney bid.

I fully expect NAU to come in feeling this is the first game in a long time that they have a chance. MSU will be demoralized after tonight. Opposing teams have made a habit of coming into the friendly confines of the Fieldhouse (the most friendly away venue in the Big Sky Conference) and shooting the lights out. And finally, if MSU does manage to establish a lead they have shown time and time again that they can't hold it. NAU will never be out of it. I fully expect it to go down to the wire-with MSU losing on the last possession when Singleton dribbles it off his foot.

[BelgradeBobcat]

MSU wins and earns a conference tourney bid.

PSU just beat EWU so we now have the tie breaker over UNC and thus are in the tournament as of just now. Whoop-de-doo! The rest of my prediction holds-NAU in a close one on Monday.

[Gidal Kaiser]

Budnich knocks down two 3s in a row. It figures that the Bud would be good in Missoula.

(Too bad Blount isn't playing, too. Then we could really have some fun.)

[defensivearts]

the Bobcats played really hard. Nice effort. Some observations:
- I think if they played to tonight's level they would have won 9-10 conference games.
- The Griz are simply much more physical, especially with Jamar and Steward vs Moon and Reid. They can get to the hoop, we generally can't.
- Singleton does give it his all, but he really likes to take the air out of the ball and slow it down. Yet, I think Huse wants him to do that. We may have a faster team than the Griz, and certainly have more depth, but we walk the ball up and turn it into a set up offense type of game. I think Huse likes this style of game where he can try to carefully manage each possession. But I don't think it plays to the wide open athleticism of Dison, Johnson, Allou, Fall, Reid and Moon. Huse doesn't have the pure jump shooters, other than Reid,or a post presence that he seems to require for this offense.
- I too find it very odd that, often with limited minutes, Budnich is a leader in scoring. He rarely even gets 20 minutes a game. We are so hard pressed to manufacture points he is needed on the floor more. I get that he isn't the best D player, but he is a good rebounder and maybe our best scorer.
- I too think that with Dison in the game we at least make the other team get back on their heels. And, at least we'd be prepping for next year.
- We have few guys who have a real chance to score under duress- maybe Budnich, sometimes Reid; whereas the Griz have Cherry, Steward, Jamar and Selvig. I think if we ran more we could score more but, again, Huse doesn't trust them to do that (perhaps with good reason.)

[BelgradeBobcat]

This team has always played hard-that's never been a problem. They try super hard.

Last night's offensive stats are just appalling. Reid was 2-14, Moon was 0-3 from three point range (remember when he used to be a pretty good shooter), Tre Johnson put up a goose egg. Next game Budnich is just as likely to go 0-8 or something (like he did against Weber). All season this team has had maybe one guy shoot well and all the rest shoot poorly, but it's a different guy every night. They can't seem to ever get multiple guys to score the ball during a game. We've been waiting for it all season and it just isn't happening.

So why not go inside? Well Allou and Fall are not offensive threats unless they get to point blank range. But Fall-at least is an 80% free throw shooter-so why not get him the ball and work on getting the other team's inside guys in foul trouble? But Huse's offense is a three man weave 40 feet from the basket until the shot clock runs down and then jack a contested three. If Fall or Allou do get position they seldom go to there, they wait for Fall to rotate to the high post where he's not a good enough passer to hit a back door play so he just hands it back off to whoever is at the point-a complete waste of time and effort.

As many have posted all season-nobody can seem to figure out what Huse's is trying to do offensively. It's like we're trying to run the Harlem Globetrotter's offense-except we're not playing the complicit Washington Generals-so none of it works...but we keep doing it anyway.

[Toucat]

the Bobcats played really hard. Nice effort. Some observations:
- I think if they played to tonight's level they would have won 9-10 conference games.
- The Griz are simply much more physical, especially with Jamar and Steward vs Moon and Reid. They can get to the hoop, we generally can't.
- Singleton does give it his all, but he really likes to take the air out of the ball and slow it down. Yet, I think Huse wants him to do that. We may have a faster team than the Griz, and certainly have more depth, but we walk the ball up and turn it into a set up offense type of game. I think Huse likes this style of game where he can try to carefully manage each possession. But I don't think it plays to the wide open athleticism of Dison, Johnson, Allou, Fall, Reid and Moon. Huse doesn't have the pure jump shooters, other than Reid,or a post presence that he seems to require for this offense.
- I too find it very odd that, often with limited minutes, Budnich is a leader in scoring. He rarely even gets 20 minutes a game. We are so hard pressed to manufacture points he is needed on the floor more. I get that he isn't the best D player, but he is a good rebounder and maybe our best scorer.
- I too think that with Dison in the game we at least make the other team get back on their heels. And, at least we'd be prepping for next year.
- We have few guys who have a real chance to score under duress- maybe Budnich, sometimes Reid; whereas the Griz have Cherry, Steward, Jamar and Selvig. I think if we ran more we could score more but, again, Huse doesn't trust them to do that (perhaps with good reason.)

I thought the Cats and Huse did a great job last night. The Griz want to run, and for the most part the Cats prevented them from doing so. The Cats game plan on offense was to slow the game down and require the Griz to play defense for the full 35 seconds on the shot clock. With the game slowed down neither team was able to get into any kind of rhythm, but it did keep it close. I know a lot of people wanted the Cats to run, but if we had done so I think we would have lost by 20. With a few more stops and a couple more things going their way, the Cats had a chance of knocking off a very good Griz team.

[aucat]

Given that Jeff Budenich has such good height and has a great touch shooting, I don't understand why he hasn't played more. I guess he will now that we are short-handed.

I like what jeff does on offense, but he's a major liability on the defensive end.

You know, I agree with your assessment, but isn't that what player development is all about? He is just a soph and has great physical attributes. I would like to think that our coaches could development his play on D for crying out loud.