WBB vs. Northern Colorado

[BobcatDel]

Some info on Northern Colorado who the ladies face at home tonight.

Coach Mattio returns for her second season at UNC. You might recall she had a record of 154-35 at the DII level particularly at West Texas A&M. She has a past connection to MSU having been an assistant here. She brings a winning attitude and will be interesting to see how she builds the program. Recall UNC won their first two games at the Big Sky tourney this past year including knocking out #1 Idaho State. She is certainly starting over from scratch with 8 true freshmen, 2 redshirt freshman, 1 sophomore, and 3 juniors……no seniors……. A young squad.

In terms of defense through 13 games they have only allowed more than 69 points to be scored on them once….that was a triple OT game against Colorado State. Coach Bin advised we are likely to face more zone defense than we will see from any other team in the conference.

As to offense, they are the top free throw shooting team in the conference shooting 79.5% …ranking 8th nationally. They are the 2nd best 3 point shooting team in the conference currently shooting over 36% from the arc. (Simental shooting 46%, Byrne shooting 36% and Fields 42% from the arc).

Besides Mattio another MSU connection you might recognize is Sydney Stensgard who played her freshman year for the Bobcats. She is averaging about 20 min per game and scoring 4.5 ppg. She is doing well from the arc making 37% and 94% from the free throw line in the limited time she is on the court. Nice to see another great young lady getting court time at the DI level.

As to Bobcats, earlier this week it appeared Grace Beasely would be back for the game after suffering an injury against Idaho. We won’t know until game time if that holds but hope to have her back in uniform. A key to success will obviously be to stop the 3 point shot a whole lot better than we did against Idaho and…..make some outside shots against the zone if UNC is going to play that D against us. Hopefully we are on top of our game this evening!

[MSU01]

Former Bobcat Sydney Stensgaard hits a big 3 at the buzzer to cut MSU's lead to 20.

[tetoncat]

Why can't MSU have a higher quality camera. We have a damn film and TV program. Watched men on road now end of women's quality is so much worse at home than most away games.

[BelgradeBobcat]

Pretty good dismantling of the Bears tonight-a team that looks a little bit down on talent. I know they lost a lot from last years team which was very good.
I wish I could have as much fun doing anything as Dylan Philip has playing basketball.
Beasley played quite a bit and played well. Madison Jackson is playing great and had a nice 12 points.
Offensively we weren't great, but UNC was much much worse-credit to our defense.
Big game at home on Saturday against NAU who it sounds like beat the lady griz in Missoula tonight.

[BobcatDel]

Maybe one of the best all around defensive efforts I have seen. Holding them to 40 points. And most of their 3 point shots were contested or pushed out.

And yep as mentioned above, the UNC inexperience showed….. I was kinda surprised UNC already had 8 wins after watching this game so all the credit to our Bobcat Ladies tonight.

[BobcatDel]

Nice summary of game:

https://406mtsports.com/college/big-sky ... 3ed13.html

[Bobcat4Ever]

Why can't MSU have a higher quality camera. We have a damn film and TV program. Watched men on road now end of women's quality is so much worse at home than most away games.

[Bobcat Jim]

Amen to that. It is hard to even read the numbers on the uniforms.

[nevadacat]

Amen to that. It is hard to even read the numbers on the uniforms.

Picture always looks out of focus. A better camera would be nice for my wife. “No dear, that was Grace, not Darian. That was Marah, not Lexi.”

[Bobcat4Ever]

Amen to that. It is hard to even read the numbers on the uniforms.

The camera also is frequently zoomed out (too wide-angle) as quite often almost the entire lower seating area opposite the camera is visible, as well as a strip of the camera-side crowd. This results in only about half the vertical screen size showing the court.

[DMMDCats]

Montana PBS is doing the men’s home games.

I believe I saw an SWX banner during yesterday’s game. The MSU site shows SWX as the broadcaster.

The PBS production is much better than the SWX production.
I am curious as to why PBS wouldn’t do both team’s broadcasts?
I have wondered for decades why they weren’t involved in broadcasting athletic events.

I applaud their efforts and the product with the men’s basketball broadcast. I hope they will add the women’s team also.

The women’s broadcast team were doing ok but seem to have taken a step backwards.
The color announcer seems to need comments pulled out of her mouth while the play by play seems disinterested or distracted.

The ladies deserve better. The program deserves better. The fans deserve better.

Overall these broadcasts should be 2 hour long commercials for MSU and the area.
Why we have to have UM commercials continuously during MSU events is still a mystery to me.

Fill the dead ad time with MSU branded video. Or just a web cam of the mountains.

But start with getting PBS to do the broadcasts with the SAME equipment the mens team gets. Equity, Title IX and all…


I sure hope the team finds a way to win games here quick. Too much talent to let these slip away.

FTs, they should be in the gym now shooting FTs. Aarrrgggghhhhh

[SACCAT]

Montana PBS is doing the men’s home games.

I believe I saw an SWX banner during yesterday’s game. The MSU site shows SWX as the broadcaster.

The PBS production is much better than the SWX production.
I am curious as to why PBS wouldn’t do both team’s broadcasts?
I have wondered for decades why they weren’t involved in broadcasting athletic events.

I applaud their efforts and the product with the men’s basketball broadcast. I hope they will add the women’s team also.

The women’s broadcast team were doing ok but seem to have taken a step backwards.
The color announcer seems to need comments pulled out of her mouth while the play by play seems disinterested or distracted.

The ladies deserve better. The program deserves better. The fans deserve better.

Overall these broadcasts should be 2 hour long commercials for MSU and the area.
Why we have to have UM commercials continuously during MSU events is still a mystery to me.

Fill the dead ad time with MSU branded video. Or just a web cam of the mountains.

But start with getting PBS to do the broadcasts with the SAME equipment the mens team gets. Equity, Title IX and all…


I sure hope the team finds a way to win games here quick. Too much talent to let these slip away.

FTs, they should be in the gym now shooting FTs. Aarrrgggghhhhh

Let me see if I can answer all these...

1) PBS Montana does every Men's and Women's game... Some games are by PBS and SWX

2) The same equipment and people do both the Men's and Women's games. Only difference is that there is a color lady on the Women's games... The Play-By-Play person is the same for both teams on ESPN+...

3) I can assure you that the Play-by-Play person is VERY interested and not at all distracted. He had an off week, and I can't imagine that he isn't pretty upset and disappointed with his performance this week.

4) The ESPN+ feed is not meant to be a 2 hour commercial for MSU.. It is suppose to be as if a TV crew from ESPN came in and did the game, with no bias or favoritism at all...

5) Yes, MSU people all over watch these games... BUT most of the audience is actually the visiting teams fans. So the announcers try their best to be non partial... (Again, these week was VERY upsetting to them, and they know this all to well).

[BethanyCordell]

SACCAT kinda nailed it here before I even had a chance to respond- all great points.

PBS does in fact produce all home streams for us- so both the men's and the women's- and we use the same play-by-play announcer for both. Occasionally, a game will also get picked up by outside television but for basketball, we'll still produce our in-house ESPN+ stream. While 'we' (MSU) technically produce the show, it's an ESPN+ production and we have very specific guidelines we have to follow for them. The main thing that's hard for our fans sometimes is the fact that we are required to produce a 'neutral' broadcast. You'll notice our announcers don't wear MSU gear- that's intentional.

Cameras: we're in the process of upgrading all of them but it's a long, expensive process. We use a combination of cameras owned by Athletics and by Montana PBS... we have a multi-year plan to replace them one by one.

Hope this helps... as always, we appreciate the feedback!

Bethany Green (Cordell)
Bobcat Athletics

[BelgradeBobcat]

SACCAT kinda nailed it here before I even had a chance to respond- all great points.

PBS does in fact produce all home streams for us- so both the men's and the women's- and we use the same play-by-play announcer for both. Occasionally, a game will also get picked up by outside television but for basketball, we'll still produce our in-house ESPN+ stream. While 'we' (MSU) technically produce the show, it's an ESPN+ production and we have very specific guidelines we have to follow for them. The main thing that's hard for our fans sometimes is the fact that we are required to produce a 'neutral' broadcast. You'll notice our announcers don't wear MSU gear- that's intentional.

Cameras: we're in the process of upgrading all of them but it's a long, expensive process. We use a combination of cameras owned by Athletics and by Montana PBS... we have a multi-year plan to replace them one by one.

Hope this helps... as always, we appreciate the feedback!

Bethany Green (Cordell)
Bobcat Athletics

Warning-Old guy story here: Back in the day, I remember having to get in the car and drive to an elevated location just to listen to a men's basketball game (women's basketball-forget it). Dean Alexander's voice would fade in and out and we had to fine tune that dial with a surgeon's precision. Heck there were times when you could see the dang KBOZ towers off in the distance but we still couldn't get the game clearly. Sometimes we'd have to wait until the 10 o'clock news sports report to find out who won-and then get to see minutes of griz highlights with little to no mention about the Cat's game.

I know I whine sometimes too. But I remind myself of those days sometimes when I have to deal with a few seconds of buffering on my internet stream. The ESPN+ deal has been awesome. It's not wrong to continue to push for improvement, but a tip of the hat for everyone who's working to make the product better.

[Bobcat4Ever]

SACCAT kinda nailed it here before I even had a chance to respond- all great points.

PBS does in fact produce all home streams for us- so both the men's and the women's- and we use the same play-by-play announcer for both. Occasionally, a game will also get picked up by outside television but for basketball, we'll still produce our in-house ESPN+ stream. While 'we' (MSU) technically produce the show, it's an ESPN+ production and we have very specific guidelines we have to follow for them. The main thing that's hard for our fans sometimes is the fact that we are required to produce a 'neutral' broadcast. You'll notice our announcers don't wear MSU gear- that's intentional.

Cameras: we're in the process of upgrading all of them but it's a long, expensive process. We use a combination of cameras owned by Athletics and by Montana PBS... we have a multi-year plan to replace them one by one.

Hope this helps... as always, we appreciate the feedback!

Bethany Green (Cordell)
Bobcat Athletics

Warning-Old guy story here: Back in the day, I remember having to get in the car and drive to an elevated location just to listen to a men's basketball game (women's basketball-forget it). Dean Alexander's voice would fade in and out and we had to fine tune that dial with a surgeon's precision. Heck there were times when you could see the dang KBOZ towers off in the distance but we still couldn't get the game clearly. Sometimes we'd have to wait until the 10 o'clock news sports report to find out who won-and then get to see minutes of griz highlights with little to no mention about the Cat's game.

I know I whine sometimes too. But I remind myself of those days sometimes when I have to deal with a few seconds of buffering on my internet stream. The ESPN+ deal has been awesome. It's not wrong to continue to push for improvement, but a tip of the hat for everyone who's working to make the product better.

If you were near to being inline with those five KBOZ antennas, you were in static city. I remember all too well. I think the primary issue being presented is that, compared to our conference peers, the MSU picture quality is lagging considerably. That and the women’s color-lady is lagging considerably. There’s some pretty sharp duos operating in the conference.

[BelgradeBobcat]

4) The ESPN+ feed is not meant to be a 2 hour commercial for MSU.. It is suppose to be as if a TV crew from ESPN came in and did the game, with no bias or favoritism at all...

5) Yes, MSU people all over watch these games... BUT most of the audience is actually the visiting teams fans. So the announcers try their best to be non partial... (Again, these week was VERY upsetting to them, and they know this all to well).

Apparently that rule doesn't apply to the griz. I'm watching their game against Idaho State and they have homer Corocran doing the play-by-play on ESPN+

[DMMDCats]

Correct, not all programs enforce the “rules” the same.

There were plenty of cow bells in brookings and frisco. So not everyone feels the same about NCAA guidelines.

Most of the announcers conference wide do a balanced job but not all.

The ESPN folk doing the playoffs do talk about the area quite a bit. That isn’t out of line. But if it’s only one announcer, I can see how you wouldn’t have time.

As far as the commercial; I meant the dead space where we see “Your event is in a commercial break”. There seems to be fewer dead spots the past few weeks. Which should mean more ad revenue.

There shouldn’t be dead space, we should try to take advantage of that time, if possible. Sac and UCD do a good job of spotlighting other parts of their campuses in the gaps.

Have a nice evening

[Bobcat4Ever]

The ISU Women’s Basketball announcer was pretty even in his call, and very complimentary of the MSU team. But when the Bengals scored, he did everything but dance on the table and scream.

[CatBot]

Wow. I'm overwhelmingly grateful to have the opportunity to watch football (either a replay of a game I already watched or a road game I couldn't make), men's and women's basketball, and volleyball all from the comforts of my living room. ESPN+ has made me a MUCH bigger fan of the volleyball team, which I now watch regularly. As some have posted, we are truly blessed with coverage compared to just a short time ago.

I dumbfounded fans are finding a way to bitch and moan about this. Just crazy talk. Reminds me of a bit Louis CK did on airplane wifi. The whiners in this thread need to watch this clip and rethink their lives.