Not Good enough for the Big Sky!!

[mslacat]

Check out the bottom of this article. Link to the source is below.


A season opener to forget about


Corvallis Gazette-Times

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. — After the first game of the season for the Oregon State men’s basketball team, coach Jay John is already saying the Beavers need to get back to basics before the next game.

It was an auspicious beginning Sunday as defending Ohio Valley Conference regular season champion Tennessee Tech defeated OSU 90-62 in the Eblen Center before a crowd of 2,181.

The Golden Eagles (1-1) outplayed the Beavers (0-1) in every area, and it started with how physically they played. Six players scored in double digits, led by Belton Rivers with 22 points.

“I don’t know where to go,” John said. “I’m surprised as anyone with how we came out to play, given the way we’ve practiced. We didn’t execute how we practiced. I’m baffled. You don’t know the personality of the team until the season starts. And obviously, this was too much to handle.”

John wasn’t happy with how his team reacted to Tennessee Tech’s aggressive style or with how the game was called by the officials. That situation kept the Beavers from running their offense and they only shot 37 percent from the field, to 60 percent by the Golden Eagles.

“We never adapted to the physical nature of the game,” John said. “We are not used to this in the west. We had guys underneath getting annihilated and there were no calls.”

Forward Nick DeWitz struggled inside with only nine points, three rebounds and six turnovers. Forward Sasa Cuic led the team in scoring with 11 points and rebounds with five.

Michael Johnson, Kyle Jeffers and Marcel Jones rotated in down low with little impact. Jeffers and Jones combined for 12 points.

“They were more physical and just out-toughed us,” DeWitz said. “It’s hard to win when you can’t run your offense. We were trying to adjust, but it’s different from playing in the Pac-10. Basically, the Pac-10 refs are better.”

OSU scored the first points of the contest and led 6-4 early. The Beavers were within five points with 7:58 left in the first half before the Golden Eagles pulled away.

They scored the last 10 points of the half to go up by 17, and set a school record in 3-point shooting percentage at 90 percent, going 9-for-10.

Guards Lamar Hurd, Chris Stephens and Jason Fontenet were frustrated running the OSU offense. They combined for five assists and 15 points.

“The bottom line is we have to adjust to what happened, and now we have to elevate ourselves,” John said. “We have to admit to ourselves what happened, and we better get used to being uncomfortable being on the road.”

One of the few highlights was the play of two of the true freshman guards, Jack McGillis and Brett Casey.

McGillis scored eight points and had three rebounds in 11 minutes late in the game. Casey played at the end. He was expected to redshirt, but performed well in practice and in exhibition games.

Link:

[urlhttp://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/11/2 ... s/osu1.txt[/url]

[bozbobcat]

MSU missed the boat on McGillis. It's too bad that we didn't get him to stay here, but we should have offered him a scholarship.

[tetoncat]

8 points and 3 rebounds in garbage time at the end of the game. They got blown out. Lets wait and see what he does in the real heat of a game before annointing him.

[KitCat]

Actually, it wasn't garbage time. Listened to the game through YahooSports. McGillis was put in with 14 minutes left in the second half because nobody could score against a very athletic Tennessee Tech. He hit two 3's within 30 seconds, had a steal, a blocked shot that the announcer went crazy over, and drove the lane and got freethrows out of the deal both times. After the game, Head Coach Jay John said they got their best play from a True Freshman...hmmm. Of course, there will always be those out their who won't give him any credit or admit MSU and UM's huge mistake unless he puts up 30 against an Arizona.

[MSU88]

8 points and 3 rebounds in garbage time at the end of the game. They got blown out. Lets wait and see what he does in the real heat of a game before annointing him.

I agree..........

[AZCAT21]

If OSU got is that bad (90-62) why isn't this stud starting? He should at least get achance this year to prove if you are right or not about msu missing on this kid.

[gtapp]

8 points and 3 rebounds in garbage time at the end of the game. They got blown out. Lets wait and see what he does in the real heat of a game before annointing him.

Maybe, but he is or will be at least as good as our bench players and he is from MONTANA! We should have offered him. It would have been good on many fronts including the large donations we could have expected from very very rich relatives.

[CatGrad00]

8 points and 3 rebounds in garbage time at the end of the game. They got blown out. Lets wait and see what he does in the real heat of a game before annointing him.

Maybe, but he is or will be at least as good as our bench players and he is from MONTANA! We should have offered him. It would have been good on many fronts including the large donations we could have expected from very very rich relatives.

And that is what he would be.......a bench player from Montana who probably would not be given a chance.....taking into consideration what our philosophy is right now. As with Pratt and Durr, McGillis would not see the floor because of the position he would play....he is much better off where he is.

[AZCAT21]

Thinking about it again I think I would much rather have somone like Mcgillis who played for a AA sized school instead of a kid from a small school. Just think that the competition is a lot better and stronger. So if we are going to be signing a kid like Durr, we probably should be signing someone like Mcgillis

[CatGrad00]

Thinking about it again I think I would much rather have somone like Mcgillis who played for a AA sized school instead of a kid from a small school. Just think that the competition is a lot better and stronger. So if we are going to be signing a kid like Durr, we probably should be signing someone like Mcgillis

Why...so he can be miserable like Pratt and Durr? Both are great young men who see way more pine than they should, especially on an 0-3 team? Like I said, he is better off where he is........

[wbtfg]

I wonder if good ol' MTHOOPS is over on the OSU boards lobbying for more playing time for McGillis.

That dude sure was annoying, but did a great job of promoting McGillis. If it weren't for him, McGillis may be playing at Carroll.

[CatGrad00]

I wonder if good ol' MTHOOPS is over on the OSU boards lobbying for more playing time for McGillis.

That dude sure was annoying, but did a great job of promoting McGillis. If it weren't for him, McGillis may be playing at Carroll.

And would be a great fit for the Saints!

[doebrmn]

McGillis was offered a scholarship to MSU. Coach K recruited him to play football. I have heard that the reason he was not offered a scholarship in BB was that he made is known early on that he did not want to play BB at MSU

[mslacat]

McGillis was offered a scholarship to MSU. Coach K recruited him to play football. I have heard that the reason he was not offered a scholarship in BB was that he made is known early on that he did not want to play BB at MSU

There is a lot of misinformation floating around. I want to clear up a few things. First of all the topic of this post is Not Good enough for the Big Sky!!, meaning McGillis was told by both Durham and Krystowiak that he was not good enough to play in the Big Sky and yet he seems to be doing quite well for a true freshman at a PAC-10 school. 1st he got offered and accepted a Pac-10 scholarship. 2. He made the active 2005-06 team (i.e. he did not get redshirted). 3. His position on the depth chart is ahead of plenty of athletes -and not just freshmen- who MSU and UM would have given their eye teeth to sign, included off guard Josh Tarver (who is being redshirted this year.) My point is not that he is going to be a star this year nor in the future, but he is looking like a very solid Pac-10 Freshman. If he can contribute on a PAC-10 level odds are that he is better than a "Frontier Conference" player.

Now about Jacks recruitment.
The Bobcat recruitment of McGillis
I am going to talk about what I know from first hand knowledge. I am Hellgate alum. and I typically attend a handful of Hellgate games every year. In early January of this year I was contacted by a "family member" of Jack McGillis through, Bobcatnation.com private message system. This family member wanted to know what I might be able to do to get Durham to take an interest in McGillis. At that point he had been offered a scholarship by Hauck for football and a scholarship to Carroll (where he was leaning to sign)., and asked to walk-on at UM. Jack was very interested in the Bobcats. His father was a Bobcat football player, he felt his game was more suited to the Bobcat motion offence, and his interests in study were more suited to engineering. The problem was that Hellgate head coach Sampson is a former assistant Griz coach and dislikes Durham so much he refused to help McGillis make contact with the Cats. I liked McGillis as a player (BTW I made a point of not meeting or talking with Jack while he was being recruited) and I really liked the idea of a Hellgate player playing for the Cats. So I contacted a friend of mine in Bozeman who has the ear of Durham. I passed along McGillis's "story" and his interest in being a Cat. Literally with in two days Durham called Jack and had a long conversation. From the McGillis side of thing I heard Jack was very excited about his conversation with Durham. From the Bozeman side of things Durham was very impressed with McGillis as a person. These events happened as Jack started to go on a major tear in the AA averaging 36 pts. a game. Durham kept in constant contact with Jack, and sent Carsen up to see Jack play. During the game Carsen attended Jack had another great game. After the game Carsen gave every indication that the Cats would be offering him after Durham got the chance to watch him play. McGillis told Carsen that he would be willing to commit when an offer was presented. Privately I was told Jack would have committed that night on the spot if offered. A few weeks later Mick got around to making it up to a Hellgate game. He met his brother Mark (who was recruiting a Hellgate guard Charlie Cox ) in Butte. As it turned out that was Jacks worse game of the season, and Durham stopped calling McGillis. 2 1/2 week after the Butte game McGillis called Durham and was told that They (MSU Basketball) were going in another direction, with their recruiting. What I was told by some folks out of Bozeman was that after Durham saw the Butte game he decided not to recruit McGillis anymore, under the logic that if he was D-1 Material Krystowiak would have offered him. It is sort of a weird Circular screwed up logic.

The Griz recruitment of McGillis
As I mentioned above in the fall of 2004 the Griz asked Jack walk-on, but they were more interested in getting Kellan Hasquet to walk-on than Jack. When Jack started to go on his tear the Griz started to get interested again in Jack, but not all that much. When they heard Carsen was down to see Jack play they got a little more interested. When Hellgate won the class AA tourney Krysco got a lot of pressure from the local boosters to look at McGillis and "don't let him go to the Cats". Bobcatnation was in no small part pushing the thought that there was a chance McGillis could become a Cat. By March Tinkle and Krysco were stopping by McGillis house or calling him on a regular basis. The problem was they said they had no scholarship available to offer Jack. That problem became a bigger issue when it was rumored Lynch and McKay were rumored to have their scholarshiip yanked. Jack asked Krysco point blank about these scholarships opening up. Krysco told him that these players were asked and expected to come back for this year. The McGillis family and the Lynch family have connections to one another, and the day before this conversation, Mr. Lynch told Jack that Krysco had pulled his scholarship. That pretty much knocked the Griz out of the running.

The story continues but I am getting tired.........

Here are the facts:

-Griz Football offered McGillis
-Bobcat Football did not.
-From about January to late February he was the Cats recruit to be had. if he was offered he would have been a Cat.
- I am told Jack is really not that happy with Mick for dropping him with out as much as a phone call.
- From just after the Butte / Hellgate game he would have been a Griz all it would have taken was an offer.
- I am Told Jack felt the Griz coaches were less than truthful with their recruitment of him.
- If McGillis would have gone the Frontier rout he would have been a Carroll College Saint.. After the first of the February they were out of the picture, but Jack kept in regular contact with their coach..
- Jack was seriously looking at a few big names JC’s in Texas / Oklahoma as a more viable option than a Frontier school after March and had offers on the table.
- Once he talked to Romar from Washington he stopped taking recruiting calls from just about all who called.

The Cats could have had him, the Griz had their shot, and both took a pass and did not handle it well. As a matter of fact as last I heard if Jack did want to come back to the state, all things being equal he would Transfer to Carroll, before MSU or UM.

[couloir41]

short answer...sounds to me like he is happy and made the right decision...perhaps an oversight by cat and griz coaches...

[DCC2MSU]

I've never seen the kid play, so I'm not going to say he is or isn't good enough to play for the Cats/griz. Is the OVC really that much better than the Big Sky? Tennesse Tech beats OSU by ~30??? The way we have started out, maybe we should have scheduled OSU.

[gtapp]

McGillis was offered a scholarship to MSU. Coach K recruited him to play football. I have heard that the reason he was not offered a scholarship in BB was that he made is known early on that he did not want to play BB at MSU

No HE WASN'T! He was never offered and Durham does not believe he is a D-1 player. He may be wrong but so be it! As Mslacat mentioned Jack wanted to play for the Cats but it did not work out. We lost some potentially great boosters in the McGillis family. Oh well!

[mslacatfan]

First I want to say that I know jack very well. I know his number one choice was MSU, he wanted to come here more than anything, and durham did not offer him a scholly. I am very happy that he ended up at Oregan state because its a better program, but I was VERY pissed off when the cats didn't sign him. Durham had a chance to not only sign an absolute basketball stud, but he had a chance to sign an absolute basketball stud from MISSOULA!!!! Jack would have absolutely blown people away at Bozeman, he would have been such an amazing addition to the Bobcats. I've always hated durham, the fact that he didn't sign jack made me hate him even more, and hopefully after durham blows another season will a talented cat team this year he will be fired!!!!!!! We have had soooooooo many talented basketball teams come through bozeman that Durham does nothing with, why has he not been fired yet?!? it drives me crazy

[KitCat]

If anyone is interested in watching McGillis play. He can be seen on FOX SPORTS NORTHWEST this Saturday night at Fresno State.

[grizbeer]

Last time I was upset about a Montana kid not getting signed it was Eric Henkle - now at Carrol Can't say anymore because his dad is my kids's VP. and he is a good guy. Don't worry mslacat, be happy.