Casey Durham

[rtb]

There is a great article about Casey in today's Chronicle, if you get a chance to read it, do so!!

I have a lot of respect for Casey putting up with everything he did last year and sticking with this team.

[Gallatin Griz]

Hey rtb,

Can you do a copy and paste job or post a link for ease of reference. I didn't see it in the online Boneman Crazy Drolicle. Thanks in advance.

[orsalak]

Hey rtb,

Can you do a copy and paste job or post a link for ease of reference. I didn't see it in the online Boneman Crazy Drolicle. Thanks in advance.

Bump because I would like to read it also!! Anyone........Anyone

[rtb]

I am trying, but the email still hasn't shown up. Maybe the Chronicle has stopped articles going to rtb@bobcatnation.com

[catBBfan]

I am trying, but the email still hasn't shown up. Maybe the Chronicle has stopped articles going to rtb@bobcatnation.com

MSU BASKETBALL


Point WELL TAKEN



MSU’s Casey Durham eager for ‘refreshing’ final two years


By JEFF WELSCH Chronicle Sports Editor



Painful as it was — and make no mistake, last year was as painful as sports could possibly get — Casey Durham can see the redeeming values now. He can see the burdens lifted from his father’s shoulders. He can feel the twin anvils lifted from his own. He knows the former First Lady and First Mother of Montana State men’s basketball, Donna Durham, can return to more conspicuous courtside seats after spending the end of last season sequestered in the supportive and mercifully distant Three Forks cheering section.
It’s almost back to the way it was for the previous 18 years, when first he toddled around the court at the feet of his father, Mick, at MSU practices, then later when playing for a man now in the school’s Hall of Fame.
After a year’s hiatus, Bobcat basketball is fun again.
“Exactly,” the 6-foot junior point guard
said after a recent practice, where the newlook ’Cats under first-year coach Brad
Huse were preparing for tonight’s 7 o’clock
exhibition opener against Minot State.
“I’m just a regular Division I basketball player now. I don’t have the ‘Daddy’s Boy’ image on my back.”
Not that it was an issue for Durham his first year, when he redshirted, or his freshman playing season, when he hit that flurry of 3-pointers to beat Montana and put a grin on a proud papa’s face as wide as Brick Breeden Fieldhouse.
The ’Cats were the surprise of the Big Sky Conference then and Casey was a comfortable key role player. He laughed off the derisive “Who’s Your Da-Dee!” catcalls on the road because even as a firstyear player the scrappy, fearless and tireless graduate of Bozeman High had earned his place.
Then came last year, and the expectations with it.
First came the losses, more than expected for a team predicted to win the Big Sky. Then came the departures of point guards Branden Miller (grades) and Ryan Holmes (general unhappiness), thrusting Casey into a role for which he still needed seasoning.
Finally, as the defeats mounted and the wheels began to come off, finger-pointing and dysfunction emerged on a team that had once been tight.
“That’s a lot to put on anyone, let alone someone at this age, trying to keep a team intact that’s picked to win the league, with people pointing fingers and having to deal with that in the locker room,” said Huse, a former MSU assistant who had an occasional front-row seat for Casey’s exploits as an assistant the past two years at Montana. “I think he handled it about as well as he could. I’m impressed with him.”
Casey didn’t feel as if he was impressing anyone when his season reached its nadir in front of Huse in the fieldhouse, where he had known such unfettered glory a year earlier. An obscure reserve point guard named Bryan Ellis stripped him twice at midcourt, dramatically shifting momentum in what would become a devastating loss.
The Bobcats finished 15-15 and missed the Big Sky tournament despite Casey’s credible 6.1 points, 2.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game.
The downward spiral was doubly painful for Casey because he could see the strain on Mick, who had poured his heart and soul into the program for three decades, and who wanted nothing more than to beat the Griz. It hurt Casey that he couldn’t repair the team’s fragile psyche for his dad.
“It was a pretty tough year on me and the way the team fell apart,” he recalled. “I felt most of that kind of fell on my shoulders. You’re the point guard. You’ve got to take all the blame when things go wrong. I just didn’t keep the crew together and we just didn’t jell.
“It was hard for me personally, the way my dad went out.”
So hard that when Mick Durham told the family over dinner that he intended to retire, Casey couldn’t make himself attend the press conference March 13 when Mick tearfully announced he was leaving after 16 years as head coach.
The shock lasted a day.
Twenty-four hours after his announcement, the Durhams hopped in the family car and spent a week in anonymity on a warm-weather vacation. Then Mick Durham, a golf fanatic, went with friends to The Masters; this summer, he had a hole-in-one.
“He’s just a new guy right now,” Casey said with a smile.
One anvil removed from his shoulders, another still remained.
The disappointment from a lost season lingered. Casey, best friend Nick Dissly — the athletic junior wing from Bozeman who probably had an even more miserable season than Casey — contemplated transferring to Montana-Western to play for Mick’s brother Mark. They discussed the notion with P.J. Owsley, a former Hawk teammate who had just finished at Salt Lake Community College.
“I had no idea what I wanted to do,” Casey said.
Then MSU hired Huse. Knowing the former Bobcat as a person and coach was a solid start. A conversation Huse and Durham had soon after the hiring in April sealed the deal.
“One of our first discussions was about all the things he was going through emotionally and dealing with the dynamics,” Huse said. “Very few kids have to deal with what he’s had to deal with, and he was a little guarded.
“I haven’t thought a whole lot about the past. All I needed to know at that point was that he was on board with our direction.”
He was. And is, along with Dissly; Owsley is at Hawaii.
“I really respect the coaching staff, the way Brad pushes us,” Durham said. “Everybody works their tails off. So it’s been good.”
The other anvil was lifted.
Just what a new regime means for Casey is uncertain. He’ll start at the point tonight, but Carlos Taylor wasn’t recruited from Southeastern Iowa Community College to sit on the bench. He’s expected to play off-guard as well.
This much is certain: Huse has no hesitation about playing Durham at the point, thanks largely and ironically to last year’s trials. The flaws of youth can be corrected.
“He learned from that experience,” Huse said. “He’s confident he understands what he has to do against Division I players to be successful.”
It doesn’t hurt, either, that Durham doesn’t have to shoulder his dad’s strain anymore.
This year, he can just go play.
“I had a pretty good idea what it would be like coaching my son, but I don’t think he had any idea what it would be like playing for his dad,” Mick Durham said. “I don’t think either one of us was going to take away that experience, the three years we had together, but I think the losses were hardest on him, and obviously he saw it took a toll on me.
“That’s what’s going to make this new start refreshing.”
Not that everything has changed. Opposing student sections are too creative for that. “Da-DEE’s Boy!” will be back, with a twist.
“This year, it’s not ‘Who’s
Your Daddy?’ ” Casey said with
a laugh, “it’s ‘Where’s Your
Daddy?’ ”
Montana State vs. Minot State
MEN’S BASKETBALL WHEN: 7:05 p.m. WHERE: Brick Breeden Fieldhouse RECORDS: MSU was 15-15 overall and 7-7 in the Big Sky Conference; Minot State was 18-12 overall and 9-5 in the Dakota Athletic Conference. PROBABLE LINEUPS: MSU — PG Casey Durham, G Carlos Taylor, SF Nick Dissly, PF Adrian Zamora, C Ted Morris; Minot State — PG Patrick Beck (12.0/1.0) or Ricky Martinez (9.0/4.0), G Jordan Cooper (8.0/2.0), SF Jessie Ford (10.0/6.0), PF Cleodis Hilliard (13.0/3.0), C Milan Cvetkovic (11.0/6.0). ETC: Minot State opened its season Thursday with a 77-69 win over Regina ... The Beavers, who lost all-conference performers Courtney Haley and Charles Rourk off last year’s team, have reloaded with JCs and redshirts; Cooper is the only returning player with at least 10 starts last season; he had 10 ... Minot State plays in the same league as Jamestown College, where the Bobcats’ Brad Huse coached for eight years.