Shaun Reid and Tor Anderson quit

[ilovethecats]

You guys are SOOOOO naive..

not naive at all. you just said precisely what 95% of this board has been saying for years. congrats.

[Freecats]

Sorry I didn't read all comments, I just read about a couple every now and then....

Can't you guys all show up at Peter Fields office one day and ask for Huse's head?

That's what the French did with the revolution and look how great things turned out!

[Hawks86]

I'm sure if you showed up at his office with around $200,000. He might listen.

[Freecats]

for that much he has to leave too then lol.

That's worth investing that much though before the entire athletic department sinks

[BLACKnBLUEnGOLD]

Sorry I didn't read all comments, I just read about a couple every now and then....

Can't you guys all show up at Peter Fields office one day and ask for Huse's head?

That's what the French did with the revolution and look how great things turned out!

Our French Revolution has already started. Established, conservative, old-fashioned Mick Durham was the monarchy. That's gone. I don't know whose idea it was to keep frickin' Robespierre for five years longer than the French did, but I guess actually going out and looking for a Napoleon isn't the most attractive option, either. I mean, it's a lot better than Robespierre, but...

#historynerdness

[dwainegf]

It's statements like Reid's that make me wonder why we don't get more local kids. If the kid has any ability at all you could possibly coach him into a decent player. I remember Pieper , Sullivan ,and Fellows as those kind of players. Not much production until they were jrs and srs. They definitely didn't have expectatons of Bozeman being a cultural mecca. I don't think this is a color thing. I believe it is a cultural thing. Both Huse and Durham (later years) have/had problems with defections. No one on this board wants Huse to succeed more than i do but he really needs to find the right kind of kids and not just the most talented ones. Altough JC players can at times fill glaring holes they do not provide long term fixes to those holes. With 13 scholarships you could have 2 or 3 red shirts every year and still have enough players on the team to compete. I sure hope Johnson sticks around as well as Dison. It will also depend a lot on the remaining Jucos from this years team to stay eligable. If that happens the Cats can still be pretty good. If not we face more rebuilding and we don't need that with a 6th year coach.

[wbtfg]

It's statements like Reid's that make me wonder why we don't get more local kids. If the kid has any ability at all you could possibly coach him into a decent player. I remember Pieper , Sullivan ,and Fellows as those kind of players. Not much production until they were jrs and srs. They definitely didn't have expectatons of Bozeman being a cultural mecca. I don't think this is a color thing. I believe it is a cultural thing. Both Huse and Durham (later years) have/had problems with defections. No one on this board wants Huse to succeed more than i do but he really needs to find the right kind of kids and not just the most talented ones. Altough JC players can at times fill glaring holes they do not provide long term fixes to those holes. With 13 scholarships you could have 2 or 3 red shirts every year and still have enough players on the team to compete. I sure hope Johnson sticks around as well as Dison. It will also depend a lot on the remaining Jucos from this years team to stay eligable. If that happens the Cats can still be pretty good. If not we face more rebuilding and we don't need that with a 6th year coach.

So the question is which local kids have we missed out on over the past 4-5 years?

[Hawks86]

It's statements like Reid's that make me wonder why we don't get more local kids. If the kid has any ability at all you could possibly coach him into a decent player. I remember Pieper , Sullivan ,and Fellows as those kind of players. Not much production until they were jrs and srs. They definitely didn't have expectatons of Bozeman being a cultural mecca. I don't think this is a color thing. I believe it is a cultural thing. Both Huse and Durham (later years) have/had problems with defections. No one on this board wants Huse to succeed more than i do but he really needs to find the right kind of kids and not just the most talented ones. Altough JC players can at times fill glaring holes they do not provide long term fixes to those holes. With 13 scholarships you could have 2 or 3 red shirts every year and still have enough players on the team to compete. I sure hope Johnson sticks around as well as Dison. It will also depend a lot on the remaining Jucos from this years team to stay eligable. If that happens the Cats can still be pretty good. If not we face more rebuilding and we don't need that with a 6th year coach.

So the question is which local kids have we missed out on over the past 4-5 years?

[youtube][/youtube]

[c.falls cat]

It's statements like Reid's that make me wonder why we don't get more local kids. If the kid has any ability at all you could possibly coach him into a decent player. I remember Pieper , Sullivan ,and Fellows as those kind of players. Not much production until they were jrs and srs. They definitely didn't have expectatons of Bozeman being a cultural mecca. I don't think this is a color thing. I believe it is a cultural thing. Both Huse and Durham (later years) have/had problems with defections. No one on this board wants Huse to succeed more than i do but he really needs to find the right kind of kids and not just the most talented ones. Altough JC players can at times fill glaring holes they do not provide long term fixes to those holes. With 13 scholarships you could have 2 or 3 red shirts every year and still have enough players on the team to compete. I sure hope Johnson sticks around as well as Dison. It will also depend a lot on the remaining Jucos from this years team to stay eligable. If that happens the Cats can still be pretty good. If not we face more rebuilding and we don't need that with a 6th year coach.

So the question is which local kids have we missed out on over the past 4-5 years?

I think if you look at the ranks of the Frontier you can find plenty of in-state kids that would develope into players at our level. The gap between divisions has shrunk and continues to do so. Joel Barndt from Rocky, Andy Garland from Carroll and Adam Greger from Tech all had very good years. Then you throw in a Riley King who I think is going to be a stud for Carroll and my hometown guy Nick Emerson who is rumored to have earned a scholly from the griz and you can start to see that there are guys out there. I do think there is something to having more guys that truely care about the name on the front of the jersey.

[bozbobcat]

Sorry I didn't read all comments, I just read about a couple every now and then....

Can't you guys all show up at Peter Fields office one day and ask for Huse's head?

That's what the French did with the revolution and look how great things turned out!

Our French Revolution has already started. Established, conservative, old-fashioned Mick Durham was the monarchy. That's gone. I don't know whose idea it was to keep frickin' Robespierre for five years longer than the French did, but I guess actually going out and looking for a Napoleon isn't the most attractive option, either. I mean, it's a lot better than Robespierre, but...

#historynerdness

If you compare Bobcat basketball to the French Revolution, we have a long, long way to go. If we can find a Napoleon, things might be good for a few years. He'll eventually overstretch and then we'll have a restoration of the monarchy. Then we'll have a new monarchy, followed by another Napoleon. And then we get a few decades of not-so-strong presidents. They find one good president after World War II, but he has to resign in shame. We should find the right coach in about 150 years or so. I hope it takes a little less time.

My point of this writing was to show off some historical knowledge and be a little sarcastic. I don't think it will take us as long as it took France to figure things out.

[John K]

It's statements like Reid's that make me wonder why we don't get more local kids. If the kid has any ability at all you could possibly coach him into a decent player. I remember Pieper , Sullivan ,and Fellows as those kind of players. Not much production until they were jrs and srs. They definitely didn't have expectatons of Bozeman being a cultural mecca. I don't think this is a color thing. I believe it is a cultural thing. Both Huse and Durham (later years) have/had problems with defections. No one on this board wants Huse to succeed more than i do but he really needs to find the right kind of kids and not just the most talented ones. Altough JC players can at times fill glaring holes they do not provide long term fixes to those holes. With 13 scholarships you could have 2 or 3 red shirts every year and still have enough players on the team to compete. I sure hope Johnson sticks around as well as Dison. It will also depend a lot on the remaining Jucos from this years team to stay eligable. If that happens the Cats can still be pretty good. If not we face more rebuilding and we don't need that with a 6th year coach.

So the question is which local kids have we missed out on over the past 4-5 years?

I think if you look at the ranks of the Frontier you can find plenty of in-state kids that would develope into players at our level. The gap between divisions has shrunk and continues to do so. Joel Barndt from Rocky, Andy Garland from Carroll and Adam Greger from Tech all had very good years. Then you throw in a Riley King who I think is going to be a stud for Carroll and my hometown guy Nick Emerson who is rumored to have earned a scholly from the griz and you can start to see that there are guys out there. I do think there is something to having more guys that truely care about the name on the front of the jersey.

I agree. I know the game has changed a lot in the past 15 years, but 3 of the 5 starters on our last BSC title team were Montana kids, with another 1 or 2 who contributed off the bench. I wonder if players like Hatler, Leachman and Sprinkle would even be recruited now by MSU or UM? None of them were overly athletic, but they were all good shooters and were very solid fundamentally. At least they'd probably stay in the program for the full 5 years, unlike most of the guys Huse has been recruiting. I definitely believe that there are several players from the Frontier Conference who are good enough to play in the Big Sky.

[dwainegf]

I know I have been outspoken about local kids and i have been asked "Who?" a couple of times. I will answer by saying it is not my job to evaluate talent and to recruit players. I am also at a disadvantage because I do not live in Montana. I will say that I have seen the Cats go away from local players and I have also seen the players that are recruited leave in droves for whatever reason. I see this as a systemic problem and feel a solution is finding kids who know the culture and like the culture, then finding a way to get them here. The most reasonable "fix" is local kids. They can be observed with very little cost and the most likely will stay. The other solutions i see are much more costly and less likely to solve this problem.

[BLACKnBLUEnGOLD]

Sorry I didn't read all comments, I just read about a couple every now and then....

Can't you guys all show up at Peter Fields office one day and ask for Huse's head?

That's what the French did with the revolution and look how great things turned out!

Our French Revolution has already started. Established, conservative, old-fashioned Mick Durham was the monarchy. That's gone. I don't know whose idea it was to keep frickin' Robespierre for five years longer than the French did, but I guess actually going out and looking for a Napoleon isn't the most attractive option, either. I mean, it's a lot better than Robespierre, but...

#historynerdness

If you compare Bobcat basketball to the French Revolution, we have a long, long way to go. If we can find a Napoleon, things might be good for a few years. He'll eventually overstretch and then we'll have a restoration of the monarchy. Then we'll have a new monarchy, followed by another Napoleon. And then we get a few decades of not-so-strong presidents. They find one good president after World War II, but he has to resign in shame. We should find the right coach in about 150 years or so. I hope it takes a little less time.

My point of this writing was to show off some historical knowledge and be a little sarcastic. I don't think it will take us as long as it took France to figure things out.

You know as well as I do that a Napoleon would make this board a living hell to post on. He'd drive Bobcat Nation crazy. Almost making us the Big Sky champs, except we can never beat one team that has our number. Then we get trounced by the Griz at Waterloo and collapse amidst another NCAA scandal. This place would be in an uproar.

It did take France 150 years to find their way, but they only took them one year to fire Robespierre. Then again, he beheaded more than 3.2 players a year

[Old Skool Cat]

It's statements like Reid's that make me wonder why we don't get more local kids. If the kid has any ability at all you could possibly coach him into a decent player. I remember Pieper , Sullivan ,and Fellows as those kind of players. Not much production until they were jrs and srs. They definitely didn't have expectatons of Bozeman being a cultural mecca. I don't think this is a color thing. I believe it is a cultural thing. Both Huse and Durham (later years) have/had problems with defections. No one on this board wants Huse to succeed more than i do but he really needs to find the right kind of kids and not just the most talented ones. Altough JC players can at times fill glaring holes they do not provide long term fixes to those holes. With 13 scholarships you could have 2 or 3 red shirts every year and still have enough players on the team to compete. I sure hope Johnson sticks around as well as Dison. It will also depend a lot on the remaining Jucos from this years team to stay eligable. If that happens the Cats can still be pretty good. If not we face more rebuilding and we don't need that with a 6th year coach.

So the question is which local kids have we missed out on over the past 4-5 years?

I think if you look at the ranks of the Frontier you can find plenty of in-state kids that would develope into players at our level. The gap between divisions has shrunk and continues to do so. Joel Barndt from Rocky, Andy Garland from Carroll and Adam Greger from Tech all had very good years. Then you throw in a Riley King who I think is going to be a stud for Carroll and my hometown guy Nick Emerson who is rumored to have earned a scholly from the griz and you can start to see that there are guys out there. I do think there is something to having more guys that truely care about the name on the front of the jersey.

Living in the Helena area , I was able to watch Garland at Carroll College quite a bit. Here's a kid that both Montana schools really dropped the ball on. He had all the talent to play at our level, but again, for whatever reason, coaches apparently don't think Montana kids can play. Garland winds up being a 4-year NAIA All American. Yeah, I think that's one that got missed.

[Platinumcat]

I've been told that Montana averages about 1-2 kids per year who are DI caliber players. I honestly don't know so I really am asking, how many players on an annual average does Montana produce that could help a team to the heights that everyone wants the team to be at? Not just make the team, but help the team to the top of the conference. The team that sticks out in my head was the one from around 1996. I don't recall too many kids on that team from Montana (Nico, Quadre, etc.).

Last, is basketball all that different from football? In reviewing the main difference between a NAIA vs DI football player, the biggest difference is the athleticism. Both divisions have good players. But, the DI kids are bigger and faster by position. Does this not hold true for basketball? Are the best NAIA players capable of playing D1? Possibly. But, would a MSU team filled with those players compete for a conference title?

[ilovethecats]

Living in the Helena area , I was able to watch Garland at Carroll College quite a bit. Here's a kid that both Montana schools really dropped the ball on. He had all the talent to play at our level, but again, for whatever reason, coaches apparently don't think Montana kids can play. Garland winds up being a 4-year NAIA All American. Yeah, I think that's one that got missed.

ya i was beating on the garland drum pretty hard for a while there. he would have been a three year starter for the cats.

we need to remember though that guys like andy are the exception and not the rule. every now and then you see a great naia player that no doubt could play at msu or um. and i also agree that the talent between the two levels of play is narrowing all the time. same goes with all of hoops. i could find big sky caliber players that could play at unc and kansas too. doesn't mean they'll be the same players at that level.

what else we need to consider is that ultimately, it's the kids decision where he plays. obviously if a kid thinks that if he averages 15 and 10 playing for carroll that it will automatically translate into 15 and 10 in the big sky...they'll play in the big sky! but this is almost never the case. guys in naia can certainly compete and hold their own against the big sky and beyond. if they couldn't, when the schools play, the score would be msu 110....carroll 3. the difference is that 9 times out of ten, with the exception being guys like garland and brandon brown at western (who is better than any guard on the cats), these naia guys don't play at the same level against better talent. so your 15 and 10 guys becomes a 5 and 3 guy! a 5 and 3 guy isn't going to get much playing time. so in the end the choice is theirs. do they want to go and be a 3-4 year starter in the naia....or would they sacrifice that simply to be a d1 hoops player?

every now and then the cats and griz miss out on in-state players. but there have not been many over the years that i have seen play and was convinced they'd have a big impact in the big sky. garland was definitely that guy. he had no business playing in the frontier. brown too. not sure what that kids story is but i had the opportunity to watch him a few times over the years and came away baffled every time that he's playing ball in dillon montana!

[LTown Cat]

Joel Barndt is not a D1 player...period. Garland, yes.

Regarding the 1996 team not having many from MT??!! Sprinkle, Leachman, Hatler, Sullivan--weren't they all on the 96 team? And big time contributors...

[John K]

I've been told that Montana averages about 1-2 kids per year who are DI caliber players. I honestly don't know so I really am asking, how many players on an annual average does Montana produce that could help a team to the heights that everyone wants the team to be at? Not just make the team, but help the team to the top of the conference. The team that sticks out in my head was the one from around 1996. I don't recall too many kids on that team from Montana (Nico, Quadre, etc.).

Last, is basketball all that different from football? In reviewing the main difference between a NAIA vs DI football player, the biggest difference is the athleticism. Both divisions have good players. But, the DI kids are bigger and faster by position. Does this not hold true for basketball? Are the best NAIA players capable of playing D1? Possibly. But, would a MSU team filled with those players compete for a conference title?

I never said that MSU's (or UM's) roster should be "filled with" Montana kids who are currently playing in the Frontier, but I believe there's a handful of Frontier players who are good enough to contribute at the BSC level. And to answer your question about MSU's 1996 BSC title team, as I already mentioned earlier in this thread, 3 of the 5 starters were from Montana plus a key reserve (Hatler, Leachman, Sprinkle, Sullivan). This past season, I don't believe there was that many in-state kids on the entire roster of MSU and UM combined. And the only Montana kid who actually contributed for either team was Selvig.

I don't really care where our players come from, so long as our coach (whether it's Huse or someone new) can figure out a way to raise the program to a higher level. But all the player turnover year after year just destroys any chance for MSU to achieve success. It's pretty tough to build a solid program when you have to replace half of your roster every season. I believe that there may be 1 or 2 Montana kids every year who end up in the Frontier, that may be good enough to eventually develop into solid BSC caliber players, if given the opportunity. And at least they would probably be more likely to stay in the program for their full 5 years, unlike most of the recruits brought in by Huse during his tenure.

[LTown Cat]

Mslacat has brought it up before that the largest contributing factor to MSU and UM taking chances on these developmental MT guys is the NCAA dropping the scholarship level to, I believe, 12 or 13, from, I believe, 15???

Anyway, if you are a parent of one of these kids and you have full-ride offers for your son from Rocky, Carroll (both schools cost in excess of $25K/year), and Tech, vs. a partial or walk-on offer from either UM or MSU, what do you do? The kid and you both know he can play and probably be a major factor at the frontier level for 3-4 years. All they know about UM or MSU is that he might develop into a contributor at some point.

This is why the level of play in the Frontier has increased so much and also why these kids aren't generally willing to take the chance at MSU or UM. Obviously a kid like Emerson is an exception.

Also, look at 2 more things: 1. MT players going out of state (Huestis, Bradshaw, and Osweiler would have). 2. MT players playing fball, sometimes out of state (Osweiler, Miller, and Roderick).

I just listed 5 super legitimate D1 MT basketball talents just from the last 5 years. I don't think that anything MSU or UM could do would have changed their minds because the offers were there...

[John K]

Mslacat has brought it up before that the largest contributing factor to MSU and UM taking chances on these developmental MT guys is the NCAA dropping the scholarship level to, I believe, 12 or 13, from, I believe, 15???

Anyway, if you are a parent of one of these kids and you have full-ride offers for your son from Rocky, Carroll (both schools cost in excess of $25K/year), and Tech, vs. a partial or walk-on offer from either UM or MSU, what do you do? The kid and you both know he can play and probably be a major factor at the frontier level for 3-4 years. All they know about UM or MSU is that he might develop into a contributor at some point.

This is why the level of play in the Frontier has increased so much and also why these kids aren't generally willing to take the chance at MSU or UM. Obviously a kid like Emerson is an exception.

Also, look at 2 more things: 1. MT players going out of state (Huestis, Bradshaw, and Osweiler would have). 2. MT players playing fball, sometimes out of state (Osweiler, Miller, and Roderick).

I just listed 5 super legitimate D1 MT basketball talents. I don't think that anything MSU or UM could do would have changed their minds because the offers were there...

Those are all very good points, especially about the players who go out of state to play. It seems like the "BSC window" is smaller than ever, because most Montana kids aren't good enough to play D-I, and those that are good enough get snatched up by higher profile out of state programs. Although I don't know that I completely buy the "fewer scholarships" argument. Even with fewer scholarships available now, I'm not sure that we wouldn't sometimes be better off giving a few of those to lesser talented, but more committed Montana kids who will stay for 5 years, versus a more talented out of state kid who bails after 2 years. Are you saying that those 4 in-state players from the 1996 team may never have landed at MSU, without the additional scholarships that were available back then? If they were coming out of high school today, would they all have ended up in the Frontier? I don't know how many, if any, of those players may have started out only on partial scholarships or as walk-ons, but it would have been a shame if MSU had missed out on any of those guys, just because they weren't wiling to spend a full scholarship on them.