The Bobcat Nation

It seems like yesterday to me, but it's been a long-long time. Tonight MSU is honoring their past NCAA tourney teams including our most recent team from 95-96. Here's the schedule and results from that season: http://fightingbobcats.com/montana-stat ... /1995-1996" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How about this: We beat Bulter 84-59 in the holiday tournament in Bozeman. We also beat Gonzaga 58-56 in Bozeman. Today Bulter is a recent national runner-up, top 20 team, and on ESPN every week. Gonzaga is the heir apparant to the number 1 ranking next week, a potential number 1 seed, and perinial national power. And MSU...we'll yeah...y'all know that story.

BelgradeBobcat wrote:It seems like yesterday to me, but it's been a long-long time. Tonight MSU is honoring their past NCAA tourney teams including our most recent team from 95-96. Here's the schedule and results from that season: http://fightingbobcats.com/montana-stat ... /1995-1996" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How about this: We beat Bulter 84-59 in the holiday tournament in Bozeman. We also beat Gonzaga 58-56 in Bozeman. Today Bulter is a recent national runner-up, top 20 team, and on ESPN every week. Gonzaga is the heir apparant to the number 1 ranking next week, a potential number 1 seed, and perinial national power. And MSU...we'll yeah...y'all know that story.

Makes me sad to think where we could have potentially been at this point.

I was at the title game against Weber State. Sprinkle was unconscious, and Quad Lollis and Nico Harrison were just very, very good players. I was never a "rush the court" guy, so I just kind of stood back and sat on the press table as the celebration unfolded after the title game.

That team was close at halftime in the NCAA tournament to a Syracuse team that ended up playing in the NCAA Final.

PapaG wrote:I was at the title game against Weber State. Sprinkle was unconscious, and Quad Lollis and Nico Harrison were just very, very good players. I was never a "rush the court" guy, so I just kind of stood back and sat on the press table as the celebration unfolded after the title game.

That team was close at halftime in the NCAA tournament to a Syracuse team that ended up playing in the NCAA Final.

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember the Bobs leading at half time and one of the announcers mentioning how Lollis had them baffled.

What's frustrating is if this happened in the last few years we probably would have gotten a better seed.

CatBlitz wrote:What's frustrating is if this happened in the last few years we probably would have gotten a better seed.

Actually, we were seeded 13th that year, which was pretty good for an 8-loss team from the BSC. In recent memory, I don't believe any BSC team has been seeded higher than that, except when UM got a 12-seed in 2006, which was the year they knocked off Nevada.

BelgradeBobcat wrote:It seems like yesterday to me, but it's been a long-long time. Tonight MSU is honoring their past NCAA tourney teams including our most recent team from 95-96. Here's the schedule and results from that season: http://fightingbobcats.com/montana-stat ... /1995-1996" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How about this: We beat Bulter 84-59 in the holiday tournament in Bozeman. We also beat Gonzaga 58-56 in Bozeman. Today Bulter is a recent national runner-up, top 20 team, and on ESPN every week. Gonzaga is the heir apparant to the number 1 ranking next week, a potential number 1 seed, and perinial national power. And MSU...we'll yeah...y'all know that story.

Wow...that really puts into perspective how far the BSC in general, and MSU in particular, has declined since then. I guess MSU felt that they may as well honor our past NCAA tourney teams, since we may never make it back to the Big Dance ever again...at least not in my lifetime.

On the one hand, MSU deserves credit for giving UM a very tough game. Even without two of their best players, UM' is probably still a more talented team than MSU. But on the other hand, if we can't beat UM at home, even when they're without two of their best players, what does that say about the state of our program? When we had to play without a couple of key players a few weeks ago, our fans forgave the losses because "being so short-handed, we never really stood a chance", or words to that effect. But faced with a similar situation, UM just went about their business, and got the job done, regardless of the circumstances.

The same could be said about the women, as I was impressed/stunned that they played UM that tough, and they certainly deserve some credit for that. But the fact remains that they've still gone 1-7 after starting BSC play 8-1. How does a team collapse that badly...even worse than the men's collapse, which is no easy feat? The two teams were a combined 14-6 halfway through the BSC schedule, but are a combined 3-12 so far in the 2nd half of conference play.

Maybe we are a lot better than UM without Cherry and Ward, but last night was a fluke upset. ??

John K wrote:

CatBlitz wrote:What's frustrating is if this happened in the last few years we probably would have gotten a better seed.

Actually, we were seeded 13th that year, which was pretty good for an 8-loss team from the BSC. In recent memory, I don't believe any BSC team has been seeded higher than that, except when UM got a 12-seed in 2006, which was the year they knocked off Nevada.

Ah. For some reason I was thinking we were a 15 or 16. Thanks.

Cledus wrote:

PapaG wrote:I was at the title game against Weber State. Sprinkle was unconscious, and Quad Lollis and Nico Harrison were just very, very good players. I was never a "rush the court" guy, so I just kind of stood back and sat on the press table as the celebration unfolded after the title game.

That team was close at halftime in the NCAA tournament to a Syracuse team that ended up playing in the NCAA Final.

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember the Bobs leading at half time and one of the announcers mentioning how Lollis had them baffled.

I was at that game in Albuquerque - MSU jumped out to a quick lead and Boeheim called a TO, but Syracuse led by John Wallace took control soon after that. It was probably still relatively close at the half, but Syracuse certainly had the lead by that point. Drexel upset Memphis in the next game and in the night session, #16 Western Carolina lost by 1 to #1 Purdue in the closest to a 16-over-1 upset the tournament has seen. It was a really fun experience to get to see MSU and the rest of a day of games, I hope I get to have that experience again in the next 20 years or so!