MBB @ Idaho

[Bocephus]

My only gripe in this game is how the offense stalls out when Walker comes in. The offense is basically a clear out for Walker to go to work. There seems to be no coincidence that the lead has shrunk every time he comes in. Walker has good post moves….but it sucks all the air out of our offense when he dominates the ball.

Been saying this all year. Walker is decent in the post, but his game just doesn’t match the strength of the rest of the players on the floor. This team needs ball movement and players willing to cut and move off the ball too. What they don’t need is their 260# center walking the ball up the court killing the pace of the game

Why does he have the green light to bring the ball up? I was a center in high school and my coach told me you turn and find an outlet immediately. Often times our guard would be streaking up the court yelling outlet as I passed to him.

I don’t want to bash Walker, he has some great post moves, teams have figured out he dribbles to much at the top of the key and they double team him to try and knock the ball away.

[MSU01]

I won't presume to be more knowledgeable than the coaching staff on how to use Walker, but I am very interested to see what he does over the off-season in terms of his physical conditioning. I feel like he's easily an all-Big Sky player if he could play 30 minutes a game instead of his current average of 20.

[catatac]

Yep, that looked like a dangerous team that you don't want to meet up with early in Boise. We'll see if they can keep playing that well. Cats were 1.5 underdogs last night and they blew that out of the water. Griz were 5.5 point dogs vs EWU and EWU covered that easily. I'm guessing Cats will be maybe 10 point dogs vs EWU Saturday but we'll see.

[WalkOn79]

I have to say the TV announcers weren’t half bad to listen to for being an away game.

I agree. That was a good crew.

[WalkOn79]

Sam continues to blossom as a leader on this team!

[MinnesotaBobcat]

Yep, that looked like a dangerous team that you don't want to meet up with early in Boise. We'll see if they can keep playing that well. Cats were 1.5 underdogs last night and they blew that out of the water. Griz were 5.5 point dogs vs EWU and EWU covered that easily. I'm guessing Cats will be maybe 10 point dogs vs EWU Saturday but we'll see.

I can’t recall a tournament that has been so wide open in the past few years. There is no clear favorite, and a lot of teams could go on a run, including the cats. Who you match up well with will go a long ways in determining the Champion. I’m hoping we open with Northern Colorado, as we seem to match up with them better than the other top teams. Cats really should have beaten them twice.

[luckyirishguy25]

How crazy would it be if the Cats won the Tourney and got Utah State in the first round? I know its like a million and one thing, but that'd be crazy.

[BelgradeBobcat]

How crazy would it be if the Cats won the Tourney and got Utah State in the first round? I know its like a million and one thing, but that'd be crazy.

If the Cats by some miracle win the tourney, I'm pretty sure we'd be in the First-Four games in Dayton. If we win that game we'd be playing a number 1 seed. Hey I'd take it.

[MSU01]

Yep, that looked like a dangerous team that you don't want to meet up with early in Boise. We'll see if they can keep playing that well. Cats were 1.5 underdogs last night and they blew that out of the water. Griz were 5.5 point dogs vs EWU and EWU covered that easily. I'm guessing Cats will be maybe 10 point dogs vs EWU Saturday but we'll see.

I can’t recall a tournament that has been so wide open in the past few years. There is no clear favorite, and a lot of teams could go on a run, including the cats. Who you match up well with will go a long ways in determining the Champion. I’m hoping we open with Northern Colorado, as we seem to match up with them better than the other top teams. Cats really should have beaten them twice.

Other than EWU at #1 and Sac State being locked into the 9 vs 10 game, the seeding is still totally up in the air at this point with three teams tied for 2nd at 10-6 and another three tied for 6th at 7-9 behind MSU who is at 8-8. If the three teams currently tied for second place end up finishing tied, the seedings would go #2 Weber, #3 UNC, #4 UM due to head-to-head tiebreakers.

MSU can still be seeded anywhere from #4 through #8, but the advantage they'll have is the tiebreaker over at least two of the other teams in that 5-8 range. MSU swept ISU and their win over EWU would give them the tiebreaker against PSU, who EWU swept. NAU also has a win against EWU so an MSU/NAU tiebreaker would need to go further down the standings to resolve.

[Bocephus]

How crazy would it be if the Cats won the Tourney and got Utah State in the first round? I know its like a million and one thing, but that'd be crazy.

If the Cats by some miracle win the tourney, I'm pretty sure we'd be in the First-Four games in Dayton. If we win that game we'd be playing a number 1 seed. Hey I'd take it.

Being a first four game in the tourney, might actually be a good thing. A more winnable game that can be notched as a tourney win.

[luckyirishguy25]

How crazy would it be if the Cats won the Tourney and got Utah State in the first round? I know its like a million and one thing, but that'd be crazy.

If the Cats by some miracle win the tourney, I'm pretty sure we'd be in the First-Four games in Dayton. If we win that game we'd be playing a number 1 seed. Hey I'd take it.

I'm not 100% on how they seed the tournament, but I thought auto-bids were guaranteed to be in the field of 64 but I could definitely be wrong.

[mslacatfan]

After recently losing at home to both Idaho and sac state…. I fully expect them to finish out the season by beating eastern on the road and Weber…. Seems like something this team would do. Ha.

[lv2hoop]

The fact that we are at .500 (8-8) in the conference at this point in the season is outstanding. Logie probably won't win it, but he should pick up a few votes for BSC Coach of the Year with the job he's done with this team. Steve Smiley at Northern Colorado has done a damn good job too, after losing Dalton Knecht in the portal and Daylon Kountz and Matt Johnson from that team they had last year.

It's fascinating that UNC went 6-12 in the conference last year with the possible National Player of the Year (Knecht) for this season as well as the rest of that backcourt.

College basketball can be so unpredictable and crazy, especially once March arrives. I would've never expected the Cats to be slightly favored against Weber State in this last home game on Monday, but they could be. Sorry to ramble, but I'm excited for this fun month of college bball.

[MSU01]

How crazy would it be if the Cats won the Tourney and got Utah State in the first round? I know its like a million and one thing, but that'd be crazy.

If the Cats by some miracle win the tourney, I'm pretty sure we'd be in the First-Four games in Dayton. If we win that game we'd be playing a number 1 seed. Hey I'd take it.

I'm not 100% on how they seed the tournament, but I thought auto-bids were guaranteed to be in the field of 64 but I could definitely be wrong.

Two of the First Four games are always played between the last four at-large teams selected to the field, so an auto-bid team can't play in those games. They're usually 11 vs 11 or 12 vs 12 in terms of seeding. The other two First Four games that are 16 vs 16 seeds are always auto-bids from small conferences. With a NET ranking of #252 out of 362 teams, that's almost certainly where MSU would end up this year in the unlikely event that they make a run and win the Big Sky Tournament.

[Desert_Bobcat]

My only gripe in this game is how the offense stalls out when Walker comes in. The offense is basically a clear out for Walker to go to work. There seems to be no coincidence that the lead has shrunk every time he comes in. Walker has good post moves….but it sucks all the air out of our offense when he dominates the ball.

Been saying this all year. Walker is decent in the post, but his game just doesn’t match the strength of the rest of the players on the floor. This team needs ball movement and players willing to cut and move off the ball too. What they don’t need is their 260# center walking the ball up the court killing the pace of the game

Why does he have the green light to bring the ball up? I was a center in high school and my coach told me you turn and find an outlet immediately. Often times our guard would be streaking up the court yelling outlet as I passed to him.

I don’t want to bash Walker, he has some great post moves, teams have figured out he dribbles to much at the top of the key and they double team him to try and knock the ball away.

I have a feeling he is being told to get it to a guard. You can see it in coaching. No other post is dribbling the ball up when they rebound the ball. I’m not saying he isn’t coachable, however there are some trends in his game that might lead people to think that he is hearing what the coaches say, rather than listening

[catatac]

Yep, that looked like a dangerous team that you don't want to meet up with early in Boise. We'll see if they can keep playing that well. Cats were 1.5 underdogs last night and they blew that out of the water. Griz were 5.5 point dogs vs EWU and EWU covered that easily. I'm guessing Cats will be maybe 10 point dogs vs EWU Saturday but we'll see.

Opening lines, Cats are 10.5 dogs vs EWU. Idaho 5.5 dogs vs Griz. I think the Cats are playing well heading into the tourney, and the Griz EWU game was pretty intense..... EWU might have a bit of a let down. My brain is telling me the Cats keep it closer than that but I'm probably not putting money on it, I get superstitious betting on the Cats.

[Helcat72]

Cats will probably do the opposite that most people expect...whatever that is. I'll say one thing....this team bounces back after a poor performance unlike several teams during the Huse and Fish years.

[Long Time Cat]

My only gripe in this game is how the offense stalls out when Walker comes in. The offense is basically a clear out for Walker to go to work. There seems to be no coincidence that the lead has shrunk every time he comes in. Walker has good post moves….but it sucks all the air out of our offense when he dominates the ball.

Been saying this all year. Walker is decent in the post, but his game just doesn’t match the strength of the rest of the players on the floor. This team needs ball movement and players willing to cut and move off the ball too. What they don’t need is their 260# center walking the ball up the court killing the pace of the game

Why does he have the green light to bring the ball up? I was a center in high school and my coach told me you turn and find an outlet immediately. Often times our guard would be streaking up the court yelling outlet as I passed to him.

I don’t want to bash Walker, he has some great post moves, teams have figured out he dribbles to much at the top of the key and they double team him to try and knock the ball away.

I have a feeling he is being told to get it to a guard. You can see it in coaching. No other post is dribbling the ball up when they rebound the ball. I’m not saying he isn’t coachable, however there are some trends in his game that might lead people to think that he is hearing what the coaches say, rather than listening

For the first time this year I was at the game and fortunately for us we sat fairly close to the Bobcat bench. (We had general admission tickets and the ticket taker said we could sit wherever we wanted because the attendance was so poor.) I remember one time that Walker was dribbling up the floor and Logie was screaming for Walker to pass the ball. With that small a crowd you would think Walker could have heard him, but he never passed the ball. If memory serves me, no one else on the team touched the ball that possession and Walker scored. I still would have pulled him. But coach has limited options as Nduka was hurt early in the game. He played Olmstead more than normal and we played with 4 guards a fair amount, but Idaho has some size so we can't do that the whole game. No doubt our defense saved our bacon this game. We play some odd zones with guards down low but RF3 makes it work. He is great to watch on TV but seeing him play in person is really something. He goes toe toe to toe with their bigs and it's really impressive how they still won't pass it inside even though RF3 is the only one inside playing defense against their post player.

Lots of fun to watch the Cats in this one especially the first half. Just wish Goracke would get his mojo back. His parents were at the game and I got to talk to them for a bit. Seem like great people!

[rfischer94]

I have to say the TV announcers weren’t half bad to listen to for being an away game.

Agreed. I thought they were quite good!

[Bocephus]

I have to say the TV announcers weren’t half bad to listen to for being an away game.

Agreed. I thought they were quite good!

They were really knowledgeable, knew all the stats. I usually sync Keaton on YouTube, but didn’t this time.