The Bobcat Nation

Tonight at 7pm in Bozeman. Will we finally be seeing Deden and/or Janssen suited up and eased into the rotation?

I’m more wondering how Coach Bin will design our D to stop Grace Larkin. First team all Sumit league. Averaging over 25 ppg and over 8 rebounds per game. Avg around 48% from field and close to 34% from arc. Coming off two 30 point games. Only a 5’9” guard.

Duffney and Hempe add roughly 15 ppg and 10 ppg respectively.

Although record is 3-5…4 of the losses are upper level teams…Nebraska, Arizona State, Dayton, AirForce.

Another fun test!

But yeah need to start working our wounded warriors in soon before conference.

Hempe has scored over 20 Points in her last two games.
Larkin has scored less than 20 Points in just 2 games this year.
Coyotes have 9 players that have hit at least 1 3 on the season (63 total 3's on the year).

Excited to watch this one tonight on ESPN+, the Bobcat women are going to be a special team this year. Hopefully once football season is over they start getting a lot more media attention and attendance. ESPN's matchup predictor gives the Bobcats a 91.6% chance of winning tonight!

MSU01 wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 11:49 am

Excited to watch this one tonight on ESPN+, the Bobcat women are going to be a special team this year. Hopefully once football season is over they start getting a lot more media attention and attendance. ESPN's matchup predictor gives the Bobcats a 91.6% chance of winning tonight!

Wow that seems like a high rate with the 3 players mentioned for them. I suppose ESPN bases mostly off record and home/away on these lower conferences

tetoncat wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 1:28 pm

MSU01 wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 11:49 am

Excited to watch this one tonight on ESPN+, the Bobcat women are going to be a special team this year. Hopefully once football season is over they start getting a lot more media attention and attendance. ESPN's matchup predictor gives the Bobcats a 91.6% chance of winning tonight!

Wow that seems like a high rate with the 3 players mentioned for them. I suppose ESPN bases mostly off record and home/away on these lower conferences

Agreed…over 90% chance of winning seems high.

Only thing I can think of is their 3-5 record vs our 6-1 record (even though they have the 4 up level losses)……and this is first year as head coach for SD.

For those not aware, SD made the 3rd round of the WNIT last year. Have 12 NCAA tourney appearances, 5 times making it to Sweet 16, and in 2008 they were the NCAA runner-up. My only point is they have a rich tradition of fielding pretty solid lady basketball teams. We’ll see what they look like this year. So I’m not confident in the 92%.

But will love it if we knock them off!

tetoncat wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 1:28 pm

MSU01 wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 11:49 am

Excited to watch this one tonight on ESPN+, the Bobcat women are going to be a special team this year. Hopefully once football season is over they start getting a lot more media attention and attendance. ESPN's matchup predictor gives the Bobcats a 91.6% chance of winning tonight!

Wow that seems like a high rate with the 3 players mentioned for them. I suppose ESPN bases mostly off record and home/away on these lower conferences

Yeah, seems high. I also checked the NCAA's Net Ratings, where MSU is #75 and South Dakota is way down at #265. I agree that the difference between these two teams is very likely a lot closer than the numbers would suggest.

tetoncat wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 1:28 pm

MSU01 wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 11:49 am

Excited to watch this one tonight on ESPN+, the Bobcat women are going to be a special team this year. Hopefully once football season is over they start getting a lot more media attention and attendance. ESPN's matchup predictor gives the Bobcats a 91.6% chance of winning tonight!

Wow that seems like a high rate with the 3 players mentioned for them. I suppose ESPN bases mostly off record and home/away on these lower conferences

Hmm, perhaps 92% was in fact too low! Cats by 30 entering the fourth quarter.

Maybe ESPN does know what they are talking about

The Bobcats have only committed 2 turnovers so far. They aren't shooting all that well but are still just overwhelming a pretty decent team.

Don't see a South Dakota women's team get beat that badly too often. That program is usually flirting with the top 25. They may have hired the wrong coach. Their strategy was to guard Morales, Dykstra, and KJ really tight and leave everybody else wide open. Starting out it kinda worked because we couldn't hit anything, but finally Dylan Philip started hitting and ended up with a career high 22 points! USD also couldn't get anything going on offense. Their 25 ppg scorer only had 11 or 12 I think. Our team still needs to shoot better, but they share the ball really well and play great defense.

Key Stats from last nights game

1) USD was 0-14 from Deep in the 1st half / MSU was 2/14 in 1st quarter from 3, 4/7 in 2nd Quarter

2) MSU had 32 Bench Points to Coyotes 13

3) South Dakota had 17 TO's (not actually that bad)... BUT MSU had just 5 (1 each from 4 players, and 1 "Team TO"... Should be just 3 by players, but they gave a Turnover to Berry when she was trying to save a ball on the baseline)

4) MSU scored 22 Points off of USD Turnovers

This WBB team is super fun to watch. Maybe my favorite thing is looking at the other team's faces in about the 3rd quarter through the end of the game. Their looks are pure frustration regarding being under constant pressure for every single minute and every single possession. You can just see it on their faces that they just want the game to be over.

HelenaCat wrote: ↑

Thu Dec 05, 2024 9:38 am

This WBB team is super fun to watch. Maybe my favorite thing is looking at the other team's faces in about the 3rd quarter through the end of the game. Their looks are pure frustration regarding being under constant pressure for every single minute and every single possession. You can just see it on their faces that they just want the game to be over.

Agreed, MSU has way more depth than pretty much anyone they're going to play and it shows with how they can play that pressuring style of defense for 40 minutes. And they aren't even fully healthy yet with Deden and Janssen slated to return for conference play. MSU is all the way up to #62 in the Net Rankings after last night's win, right behind NAU at #61. It should be a very competitive race in the Big Sky this year between those two teams. Not sure if anyone else in the conference has the talent to challenge the top two at least for the regular season title.

NAU looks mighty tough. They have a very strong post to go along with their guards. Last night we shot a ton of 3s and shot less than 30%. I think our defense was awesome in shutting down SD. Hopefully Taylor and Lexi will strenghten our post play.

BelgradeBobcat wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2024 10:31 pm

Don't see a South Dakota women's team get beat that badly too often. That program is usually flirting with the top 25. They may have hired the wrong coach. Their strategy was to guard Morales, Dykstra, and KJ really tight and leave everybody else wide open. Starting out it kinda worked because we couldn't hit anything, but finally Dylan Philip started hitting and ended up with a career high 22 points! USD also couldn't get anything going on offense. Their 25 ppg scorer only had 11 or 12 I think. Our team still needs to shoot better, but they share the ball really well and play great defense.

Gotta admit I was stunned by the sheer dominance of the game. Quite frankly I couldn’t figure out what SD game plan really was except on offense where it was obvious that everything goes through Larkin. Lady Cats were on her full length of court and I noticed in the front court they were constantly fronting her on her right hand pushing her to go to the left side. Lowest point total of season for Larkin…even considering the upper level opponents they have played…and few of her points were “easy points”. The full court pressure affected SD all game. Even got a 10 sec violation and nearly had a couple others.

SD plays NAU at home on Saturday so somewhat of a comparison against a common opponent. SD appears to be a more controlled offense type team so I expect NAU fast pace will give them trouble. Jury is still out on the new SD Coach.

I saw this coming in Las Vegas. They jumped on two pretty good teams (East Carolina and Univ of Central Florida) early, and the defense never let up and got them two wins. Those teams obviously expected easy wins and got really frustrated as things were slipping away. The offense was still pretty uncoordinated but each game they are looking better and better — to be expected with so many new and young players. The all-sophomore and younger lineup held its own in the UNLV Classic as well. The sheer height, length, and wingspan of the ‘Cats is impressive.