Usman Haruna

[Hawks86]

[mslacat]

OK men's basketball is getting lazier and lazier. You Tweet out the announcement, no formal write up on MSUBobcats.com. Just hey we have another big man on campus! No info on whether he will play this year or anything about his history. This is getting so very sad. The Griz are doing a great job publicizing their team. Every week they are spot lighting a new or existing player. They have had articles/tweets on what they are doing for summer work out and we get this. I mean even MSU-Billings is doing a better job of publicizing their basketball program this summer.

[CatBlitz]

Couldn't agree more mslacat.

[phantom]

OK men's basketball is getting lazier and lazier. You Tweet out the announcement, no formal write up on MSUBobcats.com. Just hey we have another big man on campus! No info on whether he will play this year or anything about his history. This is getting so very sad. The Griz are doing a great job publicizing their team. Every week they are spot lighting a new or existing player. They have had articles/tweets on what they are doing for summer work out and we get this. I mean even MSU-Billings is doing a better job of publicizing their basketball program this summer.

You were just complaining that there was a scholarship that was open. You've pined for someone tall. Then this announcement comes and you STILL are going to complain. I would say it's unbelievable, but it's sadly predictable.

[allcat]

OK men's basketball is getting lazier and lazier. You Tweet out the announcement, no formal write up on MSUBobcats.com. Just hey we have another big man on campus! No info on whether he will play this year or anything about his history. This is getting so very sad. The Griz are doing a great job publicizing their team. Every week they are spot lighting a new or existing player. They have had articles/tweets on what they are doing for summer work out and we get this. I mean even MSU-Billings is doing a better job of publicizing their basketball program this summer.

You were just complaining that there was a scholarship that was open. You've pined for someone tall. Then this announcement comes and you STILL are going to complain. I would say it's unbelievable, but it's sadly predictable.

I know you are in the Fish camp and have decided mslacat is the enemy, but this is ridiculous. He's right some info on the guy would be nice. You are addressing the one of the few guys that actually pays attention to basketball. If you read his posts, they are usually optimistic. You can't really say even that he is anti Fish.

[RobertCats]

Article by Paul says he will fill our 13th and final scholarship for 2018-2019 season, I'm not completely sure but that sounds to me like he is eligible to play right away?

[phantom]

Article by Paul says he will fill our 13th and final scholarship for 2018-2019 season, I'm not completely sure but that sounds to me like he is eligible to play right away?

Filling the 13th scholarship doesn't necessarily mean he is eligible. A transfer can fill as scholarship while sitting a year. I have knowledge if he is or isn't eligible, just saying that him being on scholarship doesn't answer that question.

[phantom]

OK men's basketball is getting lazier and lazier. You Tweet out the announcement, no formal write up on MSUBobcats.com. Just hey we have another big man on campus! No info on whether he will play this year or anything about his history. This is getting so very sad. The Griz are doing a great job publicizing their team. Every week they are spot lighting a new or existing player. They have had articles/tweets on what they are doing for summer work out and we get this. I mean even MSU-Billings is doing a better job of publicizing their basketball program this summer.

You were just complaining that there was a scholarship that was open. You've pined for someone tall. Then this announcement comes and you STILL are going to complain. I would say it's unbelievable, but it's sadly predictable.

I know you are in the Fish camp and have decided mslacat is the enemy, but this is ridiculous. He's right some info on the guy would be nice. You are addressing the one of the few guys that actually pays attention to basketball. If you read his posts, they are usually optimistic. You can't really say even that he is anti Fish.

mslacat isn't the enemy. I have no enemies. First and foremost he is pro-Bobcat and I respect that. However, there is a HUGE difference between saying more information would be nice and saying that the basketball program is lazy as if they are just mailing it in. I read all of his posts, to say the are "usually optimistic" depends on what topic you are talking. He is very optimistic with recruits and players. When it comes to the coaching staff, he is not. Argue whether it is justified, that's fine, but my point is still the same. He was complaining that the Bobcats had an open scholarship. He has long complained about not having enough height on the roster. The coaching staff kept working and addressed the open scholarship and height. They just got a commitment from the local kid, things the fan base wants. Still, the way this was announced shows that the basketball program is lazy? Ok.

[imacat]

Welcome to the Bobcat family Usman!!!! I look forward to watching you play. GO CATS!!!!

[thefrank1]

Welcome Usman. I hope the NCAA will allow him to play this year as he could be a good role player for us.

[mslacat]

OK men's basketball is getting lazier and lazier. You Tweet out the announcement, no formal write up on MSUBobcats.com. Just hey we have another big man on campus! No info on whether he will play this year or anything about his history. This is getting so very sad. The Griz are doing a great job publicizing their team. Every week they are spot lighting a new or existing player. They have had articles/tweets on what they are doing for summer work out and we get this. I mean even MSU-Billings is doing a better job of publicizing their basketball program this summer.

You were just complaining that there was a scholarship that was open. You've pined for someone tall. Then this announcement comes and you STILL are going to complain. I would say it's unbelievable, but it's sadly predictable.

I did see this a while ago and I did not want to get into a pissing match about this. I guess today I am feeling more bitchy. This issue I am addressing here goes back WAY before Coach Fish and is the reason there is a Mslacat! Many years ago before Fish, and Huse, back when my guy Mick Durham was coaching the Bobcats, I got ticked off at the lack attention/promotion basketball got from the MSU PR machine. The result was a pissy letter I wrote to Bill Lamberty about it seemed to me that, during football August preseason the school will report on every minutia of the football team preseason work out. It gets to the point that we get updates as to whether the head coach had brown or white bread with his lunch that day. When it comes to basketball, though, MSU does not even seem to mention it until mid to late December (when football season is over) and then you barely get game summaries. Bill and I exchanged a half a dozen email over a day or two, and it led to a very good friendship. The end result was Bill wished he could do more but he had time in the summer to write up a lot of Football articles, but when basketball comes around his time his duties have him spread pretty thin. He did mention, though, he wish basketball would be able to hire a Basketball Operations guy to help them with marketing. After that discussion I started to post more and more about basketball. My goal is and always has been to keep people talking about basketball between March and November. I created then Mslacat and started posting on the Rival.com board, then the ESPN board and finally when Bobcatnation came into being. I have been bitching about the lack of promotion of the Bobcat Basketball Programs for close to 20 year on the boards. You can still ask Lamberty, becuase I am still bitching at him. I am also still bitching on these boards! I am also still trying to keep you folks talking and interested about basketball during the summer and football season.

Now about the particulars. I am not calling out Fish specifically in this case, about lousy way MSU have been promoting the Basketball teams this summer, but I am calling out the Athletic Department, The Athletic Marketing, and yes the Basketball program of which Fish is of course runs. The damn athletic department should act like they give a damn about the program(s) and Fish (as well as Huse and Durham) should insist that the basketball program is promoted 12 month a year. As for the signing of Usman Haruna the MSU Athletic department tweeted his signing. That is it! In my close to 40 years of following MSU Basketball I can not think of a time when either the men's and women's basketball team has signed a player and there was not a write-up, on MSUBobcats.com ,about the signing. Three days after the Tweet and 4 days after the signing there nothing, zero, zilch on the site! The Tweet it self poses more questions than than it answers. Is he freshman, junior, senior? Is East Carolina the former high school, JC or 4 year school. From the tweet you definitely, you would assume he is playing this year, but I don't think he will. Then you wonder how good is he, what were his stats. The tweet says "we signed this guy and like you wanted he is tall". It is just soooo piss poor! It is weird, you get the feeling they just want to quickly mention the signing and move on! Maybe . It's 20 years later and it appears all of our contemporaries have stepped up their games we are moving backwards again.

[BobcatDel]

OK men's basketball is getting lazier and lazier. You Tweet out the announcement, no formal write up on MSUBobcats.com. Just hey we have another big man on campus! No info on whether he will play this year or anything about his history. This is getting so very sad. The Griz are doing a great job publicizing their team. Every week they are spot lighting a new or existing player. They have had articles/tweets on what they are doing for summer work out and we get this. I mean even MSU-Billings is doing a better job of publicizing their basketball program this summer.

You were just complaining that there was a scholarship that was open. You've pined for someone tall. Then this announcement comes and you STILL are going to complain. I would say it's unbelievable, but it's sadly predictable.

I did see this a while ago and I did not want to get into a pissing match about this. I guess today I am feeling more bitchy. This issue I am addressing here goes back WAY before Coach Fish and is the reason there is a Mslacat! Many years ago before Fish, and Huse, back when my guy Mick Durham was coaching the Bobcats, I got ticked off at the lack attention/promotion basketball got from the MSU PR machine. The result was a pissy letter I wrote to Bill Lamberty about it seemed to me that, during football August preseason the school will report on every minutia of the football team preseason work out. It gets to the point that we get updates as to whether the head coach had brown or white bread with his lunch that day. When it comes to basketball, though, MSU does not even seem to mention it until mid to late December (when football season is over) and then you barely get game summaries. Bill and I exchanged a half a dozen email over a day or two, and it led to a very good friendship. The end result was Bill wished he could do more but he had time in the summer to write up a lot of Football articles, but when basketball comes around his time his duties have him spread pretty thin. He did mention, though, he wish basketball would be able to hire a Basketball Operations guy to help them with marketing. After that discussion I started to post more and more about basketball. My goal is and always has been to keep people talking about basketball between March and November. I created then Mslacat and started posting on the Rival.com board, then the ESPN board and finally when Bobcatnation came into being. I have been bitching about the lack of promotion of the Bobcat Basketball Programs for close to 20 year on the boards. You can still ask Lamberty, becuase I am still bitching at him. I am also still bitching on these boards! I am also still trying to keep you folks talking and interested about basketball during the summer and football season.

Now about the particulars. I am not calling out Fish specifically in this case, about lousy way MSU have been promoting the Basketball teams this summer, but I am calling out the Athletic Department, The Athletic Marketing, and yes the Basketball program of which Fish is of course runs. The damn athletic department should act like they give a damn about the program(s) and Fish (as well as Huse and Durham) should insist that the basketball program is promoted 12 month a year. As for the signing of Usman Haruna the MSU Athletic department tweeted his signing. That is it! In my close to 40 years of following MSU Basketball I can not think of a time when either the men's and women's basketball team has signed a player and there was not a write-up, on MSUBobcats.com ,about the signing. Three days after the Tweet and 4 days after the signing there nothing, zero, zilch on the site! The Tweet it self poses more questions than than it answers. Is he freshman, junior, senior? Is East Carolina the former high school, JC or 4 year school. From the tweet you definitely, you would assume he is playing this year, but I don't think he will. Then you wonder how good is he, what were his stats. The tweet says "we signed this guy and like you wanted he is tall". It is just soooo piss poor! It is weird, you get the feeling they just want to quickly mention the signing and move on! Maybe . It's 20 years later and it appears all of our contemporaries have stepped up their games we are moving backwards again.

First of all, thanks for all you do to keep basketball alive and fans informed on this board. I hear your message and wished we could elevate the basketball communication focus also. I don't know whether the answer is reorganization in the athletic department to provide focus.... or staffing level, which of course means requiring more dollars for another body.

Although I am partial to football and basketball, I recoginze there are a lot of great young folks representing Montana State in volleyball, track, tennis, and skiing that receive even less attention. I think they deserve some recognition also, but that's a separate issue.

I enjoy reading about all our students, both athletes and scholars.

Obviously you communicated with Bill, but have you voiced this to Leon with your suggestions?

[Catlady]

I’m a huge hoops fan and I need to express my view that MSLACAT is a treasure and we are more than lucky to have him contribute to our forum. I don’t always agree with his perspective or delivery, but value his contributions.

I do agree that the program can do more to market all the great things going on in our athletic program. In today’s world social media is huge and relatively inexpensive to utilize. I don’t think we’re maximizing our capabilities. Sports has an unifying impact on MSU. We can do better in every sport in the area of Marketing.

There’s no doubt that Montana has figured that out and does a tremendous job of marketing their Basketball program. Men’s more than Women. I think at MSU Coach Binford gets the impact of Social media and uses it wisely, but we still have room for improvement. I’m not attempting to disparage the men’s program, but it’s flat right now. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. Ultimately wins matter, but it would be nice if Fish would share his vision for the program and build some excitement about Men’s basketball. The opportunity is there!

[desmond1957]

I’m a huge hoops fan and I need to express my view that MSLACAT is a treasure and we are more than lucky to have him contribute to our forum. I don’t always agree with his perspective or delivery, but value his contributions.

I do agree that the program can do more to market all the great things going on in our athletic program. In today’s world social media is huge and relatively inexpensive to utilize. I don’t think we’re maximizing our capabilities. Sports has an unifying impact on MSU. We can do better in every sport in the area of Marketing.

There’s no doubt that Montana has figured that out and does a tremendous job of marketing their Basketball program. Men’s more than Women. I think at MSU Coach Binford gets the impact of Social media and uses it wisely, but we still have room for improvement. I’m not attempting to disparage the men’s program, but it’s flat right now. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. Ultimately wins matter, but it would be nice if Fish would share his vision for the program and build some excitement about Men’s basketball. The opportunity is there!

I’m a huge hoops fan and I need to express my view that MSLACAT is a treasure and we are more than lucky to have him contribute to our forum. I don’t always agree with his perspective or delivery, but value his contributions.

I do agree that the program can do more to market all the great things going on in our athletic program. In today’s world social media is huge and relatively inexpensive to utilize. I don’t think we’re maximizing our capabilities. Sports has an unifying impact on MSU. We can do better in every sport in the area of Marketing.

There’s no doubt that Montana has figured that out and does a tremendous job of marketing their Basketball program. Men’s more than Women. I think at MSU Coach Binford gets the impact of Social media and uses it wisely, but we still have room for improvement. I’m not attempting to disparage the men’s program, but it’s flat right now. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. Ultimately wins matter, but it would be nice if Fish would share his vision for the program and build some excitement about Men’s basketball. The opportunity is there!

I couldn't agree more! It's gotten to the point where I wonder if the Athletic Dept. is doing it's best to maximize Cat FB by giving practically all the publicity dollars to the BB side. It wasn't that many years ago that the stands were packed for BB and now a large section is curtained off and it still is over half empty for most games. We have probably in Hall the best player (based on his FR and Soph performances) since the Fieldhouse was built . I feel you build a fan base by giving the home crowd something to watch after football in December (we have Zero home BB games) and scheduling road exibition games against teams you have a decent chance to build up some wins and team confidence against. Just my opinion. msla cat w/o you most "fans"wouldn't know that MSU has BB programs . Keep up the great work!! Maybe someday the Athletic Dept. will wake up but I'm not betting on it!

[duelalumnicat]

Thank you,mslacat, for your unsung efforts on behalf of Bobcat basketball. Please keep it up.

Coach Fish cannot be happy about the lack of support from the Athletic Department.

[imacat]

OK men's basketball is getting lazier and lazier. You Tweet out the announcement, no formal write up on MSUBobcats.com. Just hey we have another big man on campus! No info on whether he will play this year or anything about his history. This is getting so very sad. The Griz are doing a great job publicizing their team. Every week they are spot lighting a new or existing player. They have had articles/tweets on what they are doing for summer work out and we get this. I mean even MSU-Billings is doing a better job of publicizing their basketball program this summer.

You were just complaining that there was a scholarship that was open. You've pined for someone tall. Then this announcement comes and you STILL are going to complain. I would say it's unbelievable, but it's sadly predictable.

I did see this a while ago and I did not want to get into a pissing match about this. I guess today I am feeling more bitchy. This issue I am addressing here goes back WAY before Coach Fish and is the reason there is a Mslacat! Many years ago before Fish, and Huse, back when my guy Mick Durham was coaching the Bobcats, I got ticked off at the lack attention/promotion basketball got from the MSU PR machine. The result was a pissy letter I wrote to Bill Lamberty about it seemed to me that, during football August preseason the school will report on every minutia of the football team preseason work out. It gets to the point that we get updates as to whether the head coach had brown or white bread with his lunch that day. When it comes to basketball, though, MSU does not even seem to mention it until mid to late December (when football season is over) and then you barely get game summaries. Bill and I exchanged a half a dozen email over a day or two, and it led to a very good friendship. The end result was Bill wished he could do more but he had time in the summer to write up a lot of Football articles, but when basketball comes around his time his duties have him spread pretty thin. He did mention, though, he wish basketball would be able to hire a Basketball Operations guy to help them with marketing. After that discussion I started to post more and more about basketball. My goal is and always has been to keep people talking about basketball between March and November. I created then Mslacat and started posting on the Rival.com board, then the ESPN board and finally when Bobcatnation came into being. I have been bitching about the lack of promotion of the Bobcat Basketball Programs for close to 20 year on the boards. You can still ask Lamberty, becuase I am still bitching at him. I am also still bitching on these boards! I am also still trying to keep you folks talking and interested about basketball during the summer and football season.

Now about the particulars. I am not calling out Fish specifically in this case, about lousy way MSU have been promoting the Basketball teams this summer, but I am calling out the Athletic Department, The Athletic Marketing, and yes the Basketball program of which Fish is of course runs. The damn athletic department should act like they give a damn about the program(s) and Fish (as well as Huse and Durham) should insist that the basketball program is promoted 12 month a year. As for the signing of Usman Haruna the MSU Athletic department tweeted his signing. That is it! In my close to 40 years of following MSU Basketball I can not think of a time when either the men's and women's basketball team has signed a player and there was not a write-up, on MSUBobcats.com ,about the signing. Three days after the Tweet and 4 days after the signing there nothing, zero, zilch on the site! The Tweet it self poses more questions than than it answers. Is he freshman, junior, senior? Is East Carolina the former high school, JC or 4 year school. From the tweet you definitely, you would assume he is playing this year, but I don't think he will. Then you wonder how good is he, what were his stats. The tweet says "we signed this guy and like you wanted he is tall". It is just soooo piss poor! It is weird, you get the feeling they just want to quickly mention the signing and move on! Maybe . It's 20 years later and it appears all of our contemporaries have stepped up their games we are moving backwards again.

Interesting perspective. I will not pretend to know what the answer (or root issue) is. I do believe, however, that Leon and Waded are very engaged in how both the women’s and men’s basketball programs are doing.

[Hawks86]

I don't think Fish got the memo about the benefits of social media.

[BobcatFan68]

But thank goodness, he got the memo on the harmful effects of "social media" by keeping things off of it!
Did anyone ever think that just maybe the athletic department is waiting to release info? Maybe they are waiting on a clearance release, or transcripts, etc.

[RobertCats]

I was actually very optimistic that with the hiring of Leon our basketball program would turn the corner. He played collegiate basketball and (from what I heard) was very instrumental in the building of South Dakota State's program. They have been one of the more impressive mid-major teams in the nation the last several years. Hoping that the fundraising efforts in football are ahead of the game and it will allow Leon to focus more on the hardwood.

[Catlady]

But thank goodness, he got the memo on the harmful effects of "social media" by keeping things off of it!
Did anyone ever think that just maybe the athletic department is waiting to release info? Maybe they are waiting on a clearance release, or transcripts, etc.

If your comments were accurate there wouldn’t be a signing until all pertinent documentation was received. Our Mens basketball program needs a bolt of excitement. I hope this kid provides that energy. The athletic dept needs to develop a plan to turnaround the Men’s program. I’m not saying social media is the answer, but I’m confident it’s part of the solution.

I’m not confident that future plans should include Fish. I guess we’ll see after this season. I hope Fish can move the program forward, but we’re close to experiencing life without Tyler Hall. I don’t see his replacement joining the program. Montana seems to be building a solid program at a time where MSU has fallen behind.

Why can’t MSU recruit talent like Montana?