This is getting real bad
This team is a joke.
The Montana Grizzlies basketball team has lost 9 of 11 games. Those two wins: against NAIA Montana Tech and Sac State, who at the time had a single Division 1 win. Unbelievable. As Matt Martin pivot-stepped his way to another Griz loss, I couldn't help but smirk at how bad things have gotten.
It reminds me of a scene from the No Country for Old Men (here's a heads up, do not watch the last 15 minutes) where Tommy Lee Jones' character describes to a fellow cop a murderous scheme where a man and women invite older couples to a bed and breakfast, torture them, steal their Social Security checks and kill them before burying them in the back yard. Jones says no one noticed until an old man ran from the premises wearing nothing but a dog collar. The other, much younger cop chuckles before catching himself. Jones' character gives him an "it's alright" look and says "sometimes all you can do is laugh."
The thing is, when is this team going to wake up and see the nude, escaping 70-year-old? What's it going to be? A 20 point home loss at the hand of Montana State? It's getting ridiculous.
Try not to laugh at this: over the current awful stretch the Griz have played five games in which a big stop or big bucket at the end would've won it. They lost all five of them!
Here's the list:
- Portland
- @ Pacific
- @ Cal State Fullerton
- Idaho State
- Weber State
It's beyond easy for fans to say "you can't just blame this guy or that guy." You know why you can't just blame one guy? Because everyone can be blamed. It takes a real team effort to go on a two month stretch where the only teams you've beat are probably very capable of losing to the Lady Griz. It's amazing.
Here's the outlook. The ideal for every college basketball team is to win your home games and at least split the road ones. If you do that, you're probably on par for the course if not under a little. Let's be extremely generous and assume the Griz do that from here on out. They win the six remaining home games and three of the next five road contests. That would leave them at 7-7 in conference. Ugh. That'd be good for a 4 seed in the conference tournament last year. That'd leave us at 10-6, same as last year and probably not good enough for a first round bye in the conference tournament. However, that is based on last year and this estimation is beyond generous considering we just got swept at home.
When are the Griz going to wake up and realize this is bigger than them? Students, the marketing department and even the AD made major efforts to push Griz basketball to the forefront. Then the team goes and puts a product on the court that's flopped harder than Ginobli. Remember this? The town was ripe for the taking as the early hoops season looked great and support was coming from all over while the football team flaked out of the playoffs. Now fan support is putrid and I have to wonder if the Griz will ever get another opportunity like this after their response this year.
It's another example in a long line of failed opportunities. Whether it's with the fans, at the line, during homestands, or on game-winners; the Griz do not have what it takes to seize opportunities. The chances are there, and they're blowing it. As a Griz fan who will be there holding onto the railing if this season of titanic opportunity slips completely into the water (heh, see what I did there?), I'm begging for some change.
The Griz play 16 conference games, thus 7-7 is not possible. If they win out at home (6-0) and go 3-2 on the road they would finish 10-6. Where do you get 7-7? Also, the Griz beat Sac after Sac beat the cats. So Sac did have a D1 win. IMHO, the Griz will finish somewhere in the vicinity of 6-10 or 7-9. This team is not very good and it is hard, at this point, to imagine doing much better than 50-50 the rest of the season.
Wow, that was some absolutely wretched math. I used to be good at this stuff.
Not sure how I got the Sac thing off, we got it easier and had to play them second. We collapsed against NAU while they couldn't finish off Sac.
MAYBE I am crazy but felt after watching sundays game that we are finally getting over the hump. the lineup was better qvale in cam to the bench. they were running more motion on offense and getting better shots, vanderjagt getting some meaningful playing tme etc.
I am as frustrated as anyone but I feel tinks is finally getting with it and makink the adjustments to win and is coaching up to what he can best put on the floor with talent he has. I feel coaching has been more of the problem than not haveing the perfect point and wing players. this team has the talent to play with anyone in our confrence and win most of our games but we arent good enough to just show up and be succsesful without good coaching. Like i said though i think the team and coaching looks like we are getting over the hump. we should finish strong and have a great season next year with the load of talent coming in and the continued growth of our coaching staff. So dont give up the ship we havent sunk yet and winning will get the fans back and the program rolling again.
p.s. please someone tell coach to get graves off the bench on these guards that are killing us. he is our defensive stopper! this move alone could have prevented some of our losses.
I don't know. Maybe. We thought the same thing about a month ago, after the first game on the Cali road trip. Going off of listening to that game and actually being at Sunday's game, I thought we were closer to where we should be way back then. We all saw what happened afterwards. I really hope that we are in fact turning it around but personally, I didn't see what I needed to on Sunday.
I think the real big lineup that started Sunday—something people have wanted since seeing Qvale in the Maroon/Silver game—is a step in the right direction. This team should ride a Qvale-Strait-Jordo front court with CET as the floor general and Stads with the dagger out on the perimeter. For the most part, every single one of these guys has done their job this season. They should play the most. It's that simple.
On the Graves thing, I could not agree more and actually was planning on putting up a post on that shortly.
- Colin