Lady Cats vs Weber Rd 2

[John K]

I think we're mixing up the men's and women's teams, and their seasons in 2002. Both put a championship banner into the rafters those seasons.

Men: in 2001-02, the Cats went 12-2 in the Big Sky and won the league by 2 games over Eastern Washington. We all remember how the Big Sky tournament went. (All these years in therapy and I still can't talk about it... ). They received an NIT bid and beat Utah State on the road before losing at Richmond. Their final record was 20-10 with an 8-6 record away. That Big Sky season was amazing. I don't remember any other time where the Cats swept Weber, NAU, and the Grizzlies in the same year. MSU would finish with a losing record in 2002-03 and miss the Big Sky tournament. They would finish with a winning record the next season of 2003-04, but missed the tournament on a crazy series of tiebreakers. That season was so odd that 7-7 got second place in the Big Sky, and 6-8 (MSU's record) missed the tournament. Despite a 2nd place finish in the 2004-05 season, it seems like 2002 was the last season where MSU was really strong in men's basketball.

Women: The women also clinched the Big Sky title in 2001-02 by beating the Grizzlies in the final game. Weber State also had an excellent season, and the two teams tied, but Weber held the tiebreaker. The Lady Cats beat the Griz in overtime in the semifinals and lost to Weber in the championship.

The women had another impressive season in 2002-03, including a home win against Baylor in the non-conference season. They finished tied again with Weber State for the title, but lost out on a big chance to host the tournament by losing to a 2 win Sacramento State team in their final home game. The tiebreaker went to Weber State again, and the same story played out: they beat the Lady Griz in the semifinals only to fall against Weber in the final. However, MSU got a WNIT bid and ended their season at Colorado State, but finished with a 21-9 record. The bottom fell out shortly afterward, falling to .500 the next season and sinking even farther than that due to a certain coach. We've hashed this out on this board too many times before.

I hope that straightens out any confusion. 2002 was a very good year when looking around the Fieldhouse at championship banners.

Thanks for clarifying that for grizzh8r and me!! Wow....I had sort of fogotten how successful 2002 was for MSU. Regular season BSC titles in both MBB and WBB, aand then a BSC title in football in the fall of that same year!!

[grizzh8r]

I believe they tied WSU for the title that year, but lost the tie-breaker, so that WSU hosted the tourney. Didn't they lose the tourney title game to WSU two consecutive seasons, after beating UM in the semi-finals both years? That must have been 2001-02 and 2002-03?

Nope. They lost to UM at home in the first round (I was wrong thinking they lost in the BSC Chipper) on a tip-dunk at the buzzer in 2002. I'll never forget that, though I don't remember which player it was... Trammel maybe? I thought it was Victor Ventors, but he didn't register any points in that game (according to the boxscore I found).

I think we're still getting men's and women's mixed up here. I was referring to the women's 2001-02 and 2002-03 seasons, and you're obviously referring to the men's 2001-02 season....right??

Oops. That's what happens when people start talking about Men's hoops in a Women's hoops thread...