The Bobcat Nation

Yet another tough loss. UWGB was bigger and stronger-MSU was quicker. Stronger won out. UWGB got to shoot 18 freethrows in the 2nd half (made 17). MSU shot 1! Dave Cowan said on the radio that these were Horizon League refs. The HL should be ashamed of themselves-it was pretty ridiculous.

Brandon Miller had a big night (25 I think). Dissly is shooting way too many bricks. Marvin Moss missed a bushel of inside shots-but he was getting killed.

Towsley's back is acting up again and he sat out in street clothes. He looked pretty gimpy just walking around. I would bet he's done. That's unfortunate.

That was absolutely horrendous officiating, I'm glad to hear they're not Big Sky refs. MSU players (espec. Moss) got pounded every time they went inside in the second half and the refs decided that they should shoot a grand total of 1 FT. Also, they called Dissly for traveling in the first half when the reason he traveled was because a large guy in a green jersey had just given him a rather hard shove in the back. Everyone pray to the Knee Injury Gods that Beye is healthy for conference play. Thank goodness MSU has some easy win games coming up...enough with these close losses against teams from better conferences, we need a couple wins. The good news may be that all the other BSC teams seem to be losing just as many games as MSU. Looks like it may be shaping up to be like last year, with a bunch of teams all around .500 in Conference play.

I agree on the officiating, IT WAS TERRIBLE. Moss was grabbed by the jersey as he was making a move right in front of a ref. Dissley was undercut on a lob play, no call. These are just several examples.
In spite of the fact the Cats were out manned physically, the guys played hard but just couldn‘t get a break to get the win. This team doesn’t play like a 1-6 team. Mick, in the post game interview wasn’t down on the team, in fact he was rather upbeat. Hopefully Mick can keep the team from getting down on themselves.

"I don't sense a winning feeling yet," MSU coach Mick Durham said after watching a 12-point second-half lead melt like so much snow in a chinook breeze.

Gee, Mick, d'ya think?


This last month has sucked in every sense. We need some good news in Bobcat Land, and in a big f'in hurry...

BozoneCat wrote:

"I don't sense a winning feeling yet," MSU coach Mick Durham said after watching a 12-point second-half lead melt like so much snow in a chinook breeze.

Gee, Mick, d'ya think?


This last month has sucked in every sense. We need some good news in Bobcat Land, and in a big f'in hurry...

I got a chuckle when I read that quote as well.

its time to let mic go - hes a good guy but it seems that the last couple of years he couldnt recruit or coach. he got luckey that the big sky was very weak last year. now the best he can recruit is a bunch of jc's and his son. There was a time when the best in-state players signed with msu *John Lazosky, Justain brown, pete conway...and ect*

I went to the game and agree that they gave a 110% effort. Probabaly played as well as they could. However even when they had a 10 point lead you could tell it would never last because we had no post defense and couldn't compete on the offensive boards. We did rebound defensively pretty well and even won the rebound battle in numbers...but WGB shot like 68% from the floor and 16 of 17 from the line. Kind of looked like the SMU game... we had flashes of good shooting...but you can't win games with flashes...you need consistent play. Dissly and Moss stunk up the place shooting wise. It's like a football team being one dimensional...where have we seen that before?

Hell's Bells wrote:its time to let mic go - hes a good guy but it seems that the last couple of years he couldnt recruit or coach. he got luckey that the big sky was very weak last year. now the best he can recruit is a bunch of jc's and his son. There was a time when the best in-state players signed with msu *John Lazosky, Justain brown, pete conway...and ect*

Mick has recruited the best in-state players. In 2003 he got Dissly and Durr, with the other top 3 in-state being Eric Henkel. Give Coach a break. The schedule in the preseason has been tough and Casey Durham has played well.

Helcat72 wrote:I went to the game and agree that they gave a 110% effort. Probabaly played as well as they could. However even when they had a 10 point lead you could tell it would never last because we had no post defense and couldn't compete on the offensive boards. We did rebound defensively pretty well and even won the rebound battle in numbers...but WGB shot like 68% from the floor and 16 of 17 from the line. Kind of looked like the SMU game... we had flashes of good shooting...but you can't win games with flashes...you need consistent play. Dissly and Moss stunk up the place shooting wise. It's like a football team being one dimensional...where have we seen that before?

The small lineup in the last eight minutes confused me. They didn't seem to do what got them the lead in the first half as far as substituing, etc. I thought Woodall and Durr played great in the first half especially defensively and rebounding. I wish the same substituting philosophy in the second half was the same as the first. I think Mick was trying to get a scoring group in the last part of the game.....but that lineup could not defend.

MSU88 wrote:

Hell's Bells wrote:its time to let mic go - hes a good guy but it seems that the last couple of years he couldnt recruit or coach. he got luckey that the big sky was very weak last year. now the best he can recruit is a bunch of jc's and his son. There was a time when the best in-state players signed with msu *John Lazosky, Justain brown, pete conway...and ect*

Mick has recruited the best in-state players. In 2003 he got Dissly and Durr, with the other top 3 in-state being Eric Henkel. Give Coach a break. The schedule in the preseason has been tough and Casey Durham has played well.

Not to be a downer, but the Sags show our schedule as being the 221st toughest in the country, and we are ranked as the 286th best team in the country. The upside is that our conference as a whole is looking pretty pathetic, so maybe we can make a good showing when the conference part of our schedule begins.

It didn't used to be this way. The Cats and the conference as a whole used to be really tough on a national level. The conference seems to be in a huge rut. Maybe we need the infusion of new blood more for basketball than anything else.

I like this team and think that we have a really good chance of winning the conference this year. We are playing better teams and are are holding our own when we get Al into playing condition we should be OK.
Also I like this schedule that was put together this year, with the exception of the next couple of games. Montana Tech, MSU Northern and a home and home with two teams is dumb way to finish this preseason. We couldn't find three more home games and two away. I know people don't like comming up here but we are going to have to do something about that. Padding our schedule with NAIA schools does nothing to make us better.

Disclaimer- this post is on the negative side

Free tickets and free pepsi given out to this game to try and pack the house. Ouch, didn't do much good. We can't even get a crowd when tickets are free. Another thing I noticed is that the crowd has not been in these game at all. No noise. I guess it is hard when there is not much to cheer for.

Champ needs to go as well. I am sick of his routine. Not an ounce of creativity at all. Let me give you my rundown of his act. During a timeout he runs out by the dance team and tries to do a dance step, he can't, so he runs over to the ref who is standing with his hands behind his back and champ copies him for a moment, then he runs over to a fan to give a high five. I reluctantly give him one as I think to myself of what a waste of fur this thing is. Oh and he scares a little kid in there somewhere. Forgot to mention that.

orsalak wrote:I like this team and think that we have a really good chance of winning the conference this year. We are playing better teams and are are holding our own when we get Al into playing condition we should be OK.
Also I like this schedule that was put together this year, with the exception of the next couple of games. Montana Tech, MSU Northern and a home and home with two teams is dumb way to finish this preseason. We couldn't find three more home games and two away. I know people don't like comming up here but we are going to have to do something about that. Padding our schedule with NAIA schools does nothing to make us better.

I still don't know why people are saying that we have played a good schedule so far -- we haven't. We've played a very weak schedule, and we're still 1-6.

I'm not saying that we won't do well later in the year -- I certainly hope that we do. But we can't fool ourselves into thinking that we are only struggling because our opponents are really good. We're struggling because we are losing to weak teams.

I guess I am a little oversensitive on this point because I am sensing that people are forgetting that we are a Division I school, and we should be able to hold our own, and then some, with even the national power teams. We're now acting like it's a moral victory to play a bad team close. The bar should be set a little higher for us than that.

If mic was doing well recruiting why the hell do we have to wait 3 years for our teams to compete for #1 in the conference? I am not saying he had done no good things within his tenure as coach - lord knows he has, but i will remind this board - he is the same coach that could not make the big dance with Nate Holmstadt and Danny Sprinkle after their sophmore years

Bay Area Cat wrote:

orsalak wrote:I like this team and think that we have a really good chance of winning the conference this year. We are playing better teams and are are holding our own when we get Al into playing condition we should be OK.
Also I like this schedule that was put together this year, with the exception of the next couple of games. Montana Tech, MSU Northern and a home and home with two teams is dumb way to finish this preseason. We couldn't find three more home games and two away. I know people don't like comming up here but we are going to have to do something about that. Padding our schedule with NAIA schools does nothing to make us better.

I still don't know why people are saying that we have played a good schedule so far -- we haven't. We've played a very weak schedule, and we're still 1-6.

I'm not saying that we won't do well later in the year -- I certainly hope that we do. But we can't fool ourselves into thinking that we are only struggling because our opponents are really good. We're struggling because we are losing to weak teams.

I guess I am a little oversensitive on this point because I am sensing that people are forgetting that we are a Division I school, and we should be able to hold our own, and then some, with even the national power teams. We're now acting like it's a moral victory to play a bad team close. The bar should be set a little higher for us than that.

Amen BAC. Washington State, who really destroyed us, was beaten by Oklahoma State by like 50+ last week. Not too many years ago we played teams tough all preseason and usually went into conference play near or above .500. I can remember big wins vs. teams like Mississippi State, Texas Tech, Washington, Colorado, and close losses to teams like Minnesota and now we are supposed to be happy playing Wisconsin Green Bay close at home????? This team resembles our football team of the early to mid 90's and that isn't a good thing. Something has to change, IMO, because the best we can hope for in the next few years is mediocrity at best. Drawing 3,000 fans when tickets are free says a lot too. Finally, how can you recruit a kid with options to this program? The best you can offer is good close skiing or the chance to get a lot of PT as a freshman since we stink so bad. Just because some of us aren't as optimistic about conference play and our chances doesn't make us bad fans. If you think what this team has shown so far this season is something to get excited about I just can't see how. I guess time will tell and I hope I am wrong but I see about 10-17 and 5-9 in conference play and a third straight year of missing the 6 team tournament field in a conference of 8.

Here we go. live by the 3 die by the 3.

short and sweet, if we don't get any motion in our offence, teams will man to man us to death. one screen one shot..................

I don't think that "we" are playing great teams this year but "we" are playing teams from better conferences then the Big Sky. You guys say the Cats are in a division 1 conference but we are probably one of the bottom 5 conferences in the nation. The WAC,the Mountain West,and the PAC-10 are much better then the Big Sky.
I don't remember the schedule from the last two years but I remember thinking they were pathetic. I ment to say that the games this year are better then the games from years past. This year "we" have all D-1 games except MSU N and Tech. "We" are also playing teams that we should be playing, teams that are at the bottom or in the middle of there conferences. The Cats are playing most of thier games tough and should be 4-3, the only reason we are not is because we need a big man with some ability in there at the end of the game. The cats will be .500 at the end of preseason.

What's up with the quotations around the pronouns, orsalak? Is there suddenly some irony attached to the use of that word in this thread?

more just making fun of myself for feeling like I am a part of the team.