Tonight, the Lady Griz face a dangerous Portland State team who beat them by 10 less than a week ago. Lady Griz will play the second game tonight at about 7:45 with Montana State and Northern Colorado playing in the first at 5:30.
Mandy Morales sprained an ankle in the last game so this should be interesting. I'll be there, hope everyone else can make it out.
Coach Wayne Tinkle speaking to reporters following the Griz beating Northern Colorado 81-66.
Editors Note: Heh, I thought I'd toss this in there as some sort of retro homage to Danny Davis. I wrote this article for a class, so for a bit I had to pretend not to be the biased blogger who spent the entire game yelling from the student section. Enjoy.
With two games left in the regular season, the Montana Grizzlies—who were favored by the media to win the conference—had yet to clinch a spot in the Big Sky Tournament. Thursday night they kicked down the door with an 81-66 victory over the University of Northern Colorado.
"This is a game to clinch," said sophomore guard Cameron Rundles, "it doesn't matter if we're playing Duke or Northern Colorado, you have to be fired up because if we lose this game or lose Saturday, it's possible we don't make it into the tournament."
Rundles, who finished with 16 points in 21 minutes, was part of an overwhelming opening run that put the Grizzlies up by as many as 22 in the first half. After the game's opening 20 minutes, the Griz (14-14, 8-7) were on pace to score 96 points.
"I made some shots on Saturday [against Idaho State] in overtime and I was making some shots in warm-ups so I just thought, 'what the heck, I'm going to put some up and see what happens,'" Rundles said.
Early in the first half, it seemed as though no matter what the Griz did with the ball, it would end up going through the hoop. At one point, Ceylon Elgin-Taylor made a crisp pass to junior forward Kyle Sharp, who wasn't ready to receive it. The ball ricocheted of Sharp's flat hands right to Andrew Strait, who laid it up and in for a 20-4 advantage.
Both Rundles and head coach Wayne Tinkle credited Elgin-Taylor's play with getting the Griz going early. The junior point guard had 10 assists in the first half and finished with 8 points and 11 assists for the game.
"I knew he was getting guys involved," said Tinkle of Elgin-Tayor, "but then I saw the stat sheet at half-time and told him to go out and get 10 more in the second half...Maybe that was a mistake because we stopped running offense and it looked like he was just trying to make plays out there."
Things were rosy in the first half, but in the second Northern Colorado (12-16, 5-10) cut what was once a 26-point lead all the way down to 9 with a 26-9 run that stunned but didn't quiet the crowd.
"It's easy to come back, it's hard to come back and win," said Northern Colorado Head Coach Tad Boyle, "I told my team I was proud of them for for about 6 minutes of this 40-minute game, but other than that I was really disappointed with our effort and execution. It's just disheartening."
On Saturday night, the Griz will bring a historic lineup into their match-up with first-place Portland State as senior guard Matt Martin's 7 points gives him 1,001 for his career. Jordan Hasquet and Andrew Strait—who along with Martin were part of the 2004 recruiting class—make this year's Griz team the first ever with three 1,000-point scorers.
"We all came in together and we're all in it together, it's pretty neat," Martin said. "The coolest part is that we all played on some really good teams."
Saturday night will be more than just Senior Night and the trio's first appearance as 1,000-point scorers. The Griz will have a chance to clinch the fourth seed in the tournament and a home game in the opening round with a win over Portland State, who blew out Montana State by 28 to ensure that the Big Sky Tournament would be held in the city of roses.
Coach Tinkle made sure that everyone knew there was still work to be done in the regular season.
"We'll see if we can send a message Saturday night...We've got bigger things in front of us and it starts with Portland State."
You know the deal, live photos and comments straight from the student section.
Photos can be found at flickr.com/grizzoulian. Not guaranteeing that I'll have as many as some previous games but I'll try to toss a couple up there.
Live updates can be found at twitter.com/colinokeefe. Also available in the flashy thing below. Use arrows to scroll through.
This post can also work as a live thread for the game. If you have any comments or questions, leave them. While I may not respond in the comments section, I'll get them and may respond in the Twitter feed.
Also, if you have anything you want me to ask coaches and or players after the game, leave those in the comments as well. Not guaranteed that I pose the suggested questions but I will take a look at them and strongly consider it.
Edit: Flash icon below may be a little behind so following on Twitter page is probably best.
Seven games into the conference season, Tinkle has his rotation set. To be fair, he had the new lineup pencilled in when the Griz were 1-4 and heading into a must-win matchup against the Eagles. It paid off. The Griz blew them out by 19 then rode the new lineup to a 14-1 run in the first few minutes against Northern Colordao. Griz ended up winning that one by 11.
The argument undermining the quality of these wins is that the Eagles and Bears are terrible and small. Well, remember, going into the EWU game, the Eagles had two more conference wins than the Grizzlies. And the Bears? They beat first-place Weber played close games against Montana State and Portland State. Very capable of beating an inconsistent Montana team.
Now the other argument, that they're small and our bigs should dominate easily. OK, if someone proposed this lineup to you before these couple games, what type of teams would you be most afraid of? Small quick teams like EWU and NoCo or big teams who run closer to our speed? It'd be EWU and NoCo. Going into the game, I was terrified of what Adris DeLeon—coming off a 42 point effort against NoCo—would do to this big and slightly slower lineup. After the game I thought DeLeon was a prick and our big lineup was more than capable of defending guards like him.
Looking forward to seeing how these guys do on the road against PSU. Also, anyone know where I can get a #44 Montana jersey?
The 2008 football schedule is out. As reported on here first, the Griz will open their season down San Luis Obispo against the Cal Poly Mustangs.
Here's the complete schedule:
Date ..... Opponent ..... Time
9.6 ..... at Cal Poly ..... TBA
9.13 ..... Southern Utah ..... 1:05 p.m.
9.20 ..... UC-Davis (Homecoming) ..... 1:05 p.m.
9.27 ..... Central Washington ..... 1:05 p.m.
10.4 ..... at Weber State * ..... TBA
10.11 ..... at Eastern Washington * ..... TBA
10.18 ..... Sacramento State * ..... 1:05 p.m.
10.25 ..... at Northern Colorado * ..... TBA
11.1 ..... Northern Arizona * ..... 12:05 p.m.
11.8 ..... at Portland State * ..... TBA
11.15 ..... Idaho State * ..... 12:05 p.m.
11.22 ..... Montana State * (108th meeting) ..... 12:05 p.m.* Conference game
The OOC is alright. We probably shouldn't be playing a DII school but whatever. Here's O'Day's rationale on playing schools from a lower division. It's his response to playing Ft. Lewis last year but fits around the fact that we're playing Central Washington:
Last year, we played Fort Lewis (Don Read loved the Division II schools to let young kids get experience) and UM Athletics netted about $300,000 - not counting what the Adams Center received for ticket fees ($1 per ticket), or what dining services produced in sales, or the bookstore... not counting what the Missoula economy saw by another home game (estimated at between $5-$7 million per home weekend). We admit that was a "money game," as do most teams at our level. Still, it is no different than Oregon hosting Montana for $450,000 or Iowa hosting Montana for $650,000. Their fans expected big wins at our expense, and they, too, need to produce funds to pay their bills.
After the non-conference slate, what should be two of our toughest BSC games are on the road: we have to go to Portland to play the Vikings and to the Cheney to play the Eagles. Those should be two very challenging games. Then we cap off the season with the Brawl in Missoula and hopefully another Big Sky Championship.
This weekly feature is actually becoming weekly as it's back for consecutive weeks.
Griz get two game lead with victory over NAU. It's the Griz's most impressive win of the season and it almost guarantees them at least a share of the Big Sky championship. Lex carried for 130 yards in the second half and essentially carried the Griz to victory. Finally, we are starting to see the team everyone thought to compete for a National Championship.
Montana State embarrassed by Northern Colorado. Northern Colorado finally got its first win over a Big Sky team since joining the conference. It wasn't over a bottom-feeder like Sac State or Idaho State either. It was over 19th ranked Montana State. This will undoubtedly knock MSU out of the rankings, the BSC title chase and probably the playoffs.
Weber State 73, Portland State 68. Um, what the hell? It's the most points scored in an NCAA football game since these types of things were first recorded. Freshman quarterbacks—one a redshirt and one a true freshman—combined for 13 passing touchdowns. Portland State QB Drew Hubel, a true freshman making his first start, passed for nine touchdowns. I'm sure Mouse Davis likes to see that but I doubt this is what Glanville had in mind when he said PSU would have the hardest hitting defense on the West Coast.
Eastern Washington hands Sac State another close loss. Half the conference decided they weren't going to play defense this weekend. The Hornets and Eagles amassed more than 900 total yards in EWU's 31-24 win.
Idaho State thumped by Cal Poly, 48-28. Here's another team who felt defense really wasn't essential. Cal Poly quarterback Jonathan Dally threw for 453 yards and ran for 119 more. Idaho State is now 3-5 overall and 2-3 in conference.
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The Northern Colorado Bears finally have their first win over a Division I team since moving up. After losing 16 straight, the Bears beat the Bobcats 16-13.
For moments at the end of the game, it seemed as though the Bears were trying to lose. Well, the Bobcats tried to lose a little bit harder.
After a partially blocked Northern Colorado punt, MSU went down and scored with roughly 50 seconds on the clock. The Bears burned two timeouts trying to ice the kicker on the extra point. It didn't work. Neither did MSU's kickoff coverage. The Bears returned the ball to the MSU 40 and completed a long pass to the 20 on an ensuing play. They kicked a 37 yard field goal and with that, the Bears are on a winning streak for the first time in a season and half.
Photo by Todd Goodrich for Montanagrizzlies.com
This weekly roundup on action in the Big Sky has been less than weekly but here it is for this weekend's games.
The Bears are who we thought they were, but are the Griz? The Griz racked up an impressive 627 yards and 52 points in their dominant win over Northern Colorado but who really knows what that means? Will the win set the Griz offense on a track that leads toward Chattanooga or is this simply a good win over a bad team? Griz fans can hope for the former but the next two games should be a better indicator than this win over a team that hasn't beat a Division I team since moving up.
Bobcats survive Sac State. As many Griz fans expected/hoped for, the MSU offense had a bit of trouble against the Hornet defense. The Cats were down 6-0 at the half but outscored the Hornets 20-3 in the final two quarters. They've now won eight straight in what has effectively been dubbed "The Ashtray."
Weber ends NAU's two game BSC win streak. Not a whole lot going on in this one. The Lumberjacks had a chance to tie it with about 9 minutes left in the game but a two point conversion was batted down. A few plays later, Weber scored and the game was out of reach.
Portland State falls to Idaho State, 38-20. Going into this season, Portland State had hopes for a Big Sky championship. It doesn't look like that's going to happen. Sorry Jer. The Viks were up 13-3 at halftime but the Bengals scored four third quarter touchdowns with two of them being on defense. The Vikings are 2-5 overall and 2-2 in the Big Sky. The only thing that may salvage their season: an upset over UM. I'm not too frightened but it is on my mind.
Eastern gets crushed by BYU. Fans of FCS, or at least Big Sky teams, hoped EWU's impressive offense would at least put a little fear into BYU, maybe make a game out of it. That did not happen. While the Eagles suffered a 42-7 defeat, they did get $325,000 for making the trip.
Youtube highlights of the Hawaii/Northern Colorado game, complete with the obligatory horrendous rock music.
Many Griz fans are a but more than discontent with the way the season has gone so far. Sure the Griz are 6-0, but the offense has looked horrible and outside of Ft. Lewis, we've yet to play a really dominating game. As the title indicates, things could be much worse. We could have lost 15 games in a row.
How it feels for the Bears of Northern Colorado, from The Missoulian:
“It is real frustrating, and it is real depressing,” UNC quarterback Dominic Breazeale said in a postgame interview with the Greeley Tribune. “It is hard to go through a season with so many losses considering we had so many losses last season, too. This season was supposed to be a breakout for us, and we are sitting here with no wins right now and it is not a good feeling at all.”“It's just frustrating because our plays are set up, and they're right there,” UNC tight end Ryan Chesla said. “Their defense didn't beat us. We just didn't play our game.”
“For whatever reason, it seems like everybody plays a pretty good game against us and we are going to have to play one perfect in order to pull one out,” UNC head coach Scott Downing said to the Tribune. “But that's part of it. That's what we call pounding the rock.”
“I'm not disappointed in our kids, our coaches or anything, our support staff, our strength coach, our trainers,” Downing said. “Everybody is busting their butt for us. These kids, they deserve a win, but I don't know how it's going to happen.”
The program deserves a win, but they're probably not going to get it this weekend. I feel for Northern Colorado fans, this is like Montana riding postseason success, moving up to the WAC then losing for two years straight. Well, the Rockies are in the World Series. At least they have that.
It wasn't here last week, but this weekly recap of Big Sky games is back for week 5.
Montana very unimpressive against WSU. It was a lot like the USC-Washington game. Both the Trojans and Griz were ranked number one but put up less than inspiring performances against decent yet unranked teams who wore purple and had school names starting with a W. I don't think the Trojans committed nearly as many penalties though.
Portland State beats Eastern Washington, 28-21. The Viking offense looked very strong in the win as they racked up 520 yards of total offense. Even so, it was a close game. The game ended when Portland State picked off a desperation pass in the end zone.
Sac State rolls over Northern Arizona, 38-9. NAU head coach Jerome Souers didn't give the Hornets much credit, saying "it was one of those games that whatever could go wrong, did go wrong." You know what, you got stomped. It wasn't just things going wrong. Sac State obviously played well.
Montana State rallies from 10-0 deficit to beat Idaho State. The Bobcats had a strong third quarter and Demetrius Crawford ran for 173 yards on 23 carries as the Bobcats' 40-20 win put the Bengals 0-2 in the conference.
Northern Colorado loses to Cal Poly, 56-21. What can I say? They got this losing thing down.
The Bears aren't who everyone thought they were.
The University of Northern Colorado volleyball team, which was picked to finish 8th in the conference, beat the Griz, who were picked 3rd, in three straight games. The team is pretty thrilled and rightfully so. The Bears ended the Griz's season last year and they start this conference season off by dealing the Griz another loss.
From The Greeley Tribune:
With a sound 3-0 victory Thursday night over the University of Montana at Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion, the Bears volleyball team sang the fight song in unison as it blared through the gymnasium speakers following the match.For a moment, I was proud to be a Bear again.
It's been a while since I've felt that.
Not only did Northern Colorado beat Montana in a Big Sky Conference sporting event -- boy, that has a nice ring to it -- the Bears did it in convincing fashion. Not bad for a team, with only two seniors, which was picked to finish eighth in the Big Sky preseason poll. Montana was picked third.
"That's a huge win for us," UNC volleyball coach Lyndsey Benson said. "We knew we weren't an eighth-place team so every match we are going to go prove to the Big Sky teams that we are better than that."
The Griz play at Northern Arizona on Saturday before returning home for a game against Portland State next Thursday.
This is a weekly segment quickly recapping the past week's games in the Big Sky.
Montana beats Fort Lewis 49-0. If there was college fantasy football and you had a few Montana Grizzlies on your team, you would've looked pretty good this weekend. Too bad there's no such thing as college fantasy football and we just wasted our time watching our school trounce a Division II squad. At least the offense was rolling.
Portland State loses again, this time to UC Davis 26-17. This past offseason I said Jerry Glanville has done everything he possibly could to promote and manage the PSU football program. Well, there's more to promoting. The Vikings have flopped coming out of the gate. It will be interesting to season if the preseason hype can survive this awful start. The Viks were up 17-3 at one point before giving up 23 unanswered. Not good.
Northern Arizona fell to the University of Arizona, 45-24. These are the type of games FCS powers need to schedule. Games against beatable FCS teams. NAU isn't a FCS power and was just looking for a local and almost but not quite rivalry-esque game. Those are fine too. The UA offense rolled over the Lumberjacks as their quarterback passed for five touchdowns.
Northern Colorado gets reamed by D-II Chadron State, 31-0. This is the second year in a row a Big Sky team has lost to Chadron St. Why are the Griz playing all these easy games now? What are we preparing for? Conference games? Come on. Sure, Chadron State is one of the best teams in D-II, but so was Northern Colorado before they moved. You can't get shut out, at home, by a team in a lower division.
Idaho State beats NAIA Southern Oregon "respectably," 37-11. That's kind of close for an NAIA school. Probably too close. The Bengals' freshman quarterback Russell Hill completed 20 of his 31 passes. They played well, but it was NAIA so it doesn't really matter.
The former Northern Colorado backup punter who was accused of stabbing the starter in order to get the starting gig was found guilty of assault. It could've been worse for Mitch Cozad, who did escape charges of attempted murder.
Cozad faces up 16 years in prison for stabbing Rafel Mendoza in the leg in a dark parking lot. The attempted first-degree murder charge Cozad escaped carried a sentence of up to 48 years.
Here is the AP article on the case, which could've gone differently if Colorado admitted certain pieces of evidence.
Cozad shook his head as the verdict was read. His fiancee, Michelle Weydert, broke into uncontrollable sobbing as the cuffs clicked shut around his wrists.Cozad's mother, Suzanne Cozad, shouted at prosecutors, "You all know he passed the polygraph, you all know it."
[Attorney Joseph Gavaldon] told reporters Cozad had taken a polygraph test and had passed, but he said polygraph results are inadmissible in Colorado courts.
Either Cozad is innocent or he has the lying capacity of George Costanza. I hope he's got Costanza's superpower because an innocent engaged college kid with the whole world in front of him going to jail is not cool.
As any baseball fans know, double-headers are tough. It's extremely difficult to go out and win two games in one day. Things are especially difficult when you try to pick up two on the road. Well, the Griz lacrosse team did just that with wins yesterday over #7 Northern Colorado and #11 Montana State.
I don't have many specifics and the only news I have on yesterday's games comes from a blip on Grizlax.com regarding the Northern Colorado game and an anonymous e-mail saying both games went well. The Griz beat Northern Colorado 15-10 and I do not have a score on the MSU game.
This makes the third Griz lacrosse victory in two days as the team also beat #19 Western Oregon on Saturday.
I believe this marks the end of the regular season for the UM lacrosse team. Please do let me know if there is some kind of a postseason.
Update: The score of the Griz-Cat lacrosse game was 17-10, Griz.
The Lady Griz tennis team traveled to Colorado this past weekend to play Denver, Colorado State and Northern Colorado. The weekend could've gone better as the team went 1-2 with losses to Denver and Colorado State. The win came over the Bears. The women's tennis team is now 4-15 this year; they finish up their regular season next weekend against Montana State and Idaho State.
The weekend went a little better for the men's tennis team as staed at home this weekend and went 2-1. They lost to Portland on Friday before picking up wins over Northern Arizona and Weber State on Saturday and Sunday. The men's tennis teams sits at 9-8 on the season and 4-1 in Big Sky Conference play. They sit by themselves at second place in the conference.
The men's tennis team plays Montana State in Bozeman and Idaho State at home next weekend. They need to win just one of those matches to secure a 2 seed and a bye in the Big Sky Tournament.
It seems that "power rankings" have reached almost Livestrong bracelet caliber trendiness amongst sports sites with just about everyone with an opinion ranking select group of teams by, um, power.
The Big Sky Conference will now have two sets of power rankings, with Ian Ruder over at Vikings Blog throwing his first set of rankings up today. Kellis Robinett also does BSC power rankings over at his blog in connection with the Pocatello Journal.
In Ian's rankings, the Griz sit at second, behind Weber State and in front of Northern Arizona and Idaho State. This definitely is a bit iffy (the very goal of "power rankings" is to stir up discussion) seeing as the Griz beat WSU last week and are tied in the loss column after road wins over NAU and Northern Colorado.
Here's the caption next to UM's ranking: "If Krystkowiak was still coaching, this deep, talented group would run away with the league. As is, the team seems to be jelling under coach Wayne Tinkle."
I would've agreed with this statement earlier in the season, but I'm not so sure now. This is a very talented team, but they also are team filled with diverse personalities and no real leader. It has taken a lot for this team to come together and I'm not so sure it would've happened any faster under LK.
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According to this week's BSC Power Rankings, which are done by Kellis Robinett of the Idaho State Journal, the Griz are the sixth best team in the Big Sky Conference.
Normally I would think this is a total farce but the Big Sky Conference is all over the place this year. Just look at NAU's ranking and caption. While you're at it, check out Northern Colorado's as well.
3. Northern Arizona (8-7, 3-1) With a trip to Northern Colorado coming up, move NAU to 4-1.9. Northern Colorado (2-14, 0-4) One RPI service ranks the Bears last among all Division I teams.
Well, in this year's BSC conference, guaranteed wins are a sure thing like Ohio State rolling over Florida was a sure thing. Tonight, NAU fell to UNC on a layup with ten seconds to play.
Most of the other rankings held true as Idaho State beat EWU, moving to 3-0 in conference, and Weber State beat Sac State. Weber State is now sitting pretty after wins on consecutive nights and a 5-1 record in conference play. It is kind of odd that WSU has played six games while some teams have only played three.
Here's the Sports Nework's preview of the the UNC game this weekend. Matt Dougherty says the Bears will not make even close to the showing they did against the Cats. He also says, essentially, that the Griz will basically use the Bears as a practice squad to get the offense rolling.
While Montana State gets to sit and wait for the Nov. 18 showdown with the Grizzlies in Missoula, Montana gets a chance to go on the road and clinch at least a share of the Big Sky title for the ninth year in a row by winning at Northern Colorado. That should be a pretty easy task, though the Bears were in the game until the end in a 13-10 loss against the Bobcats last week. Still, this should provide a good opportunity for Montana to get the offense going after a few so-so performances. Quarterback Josh Swogger (1,618 yards, 9 TD/7 INT) came through with a gamewinning drive in the final minutes of Montana’s 10-9 victory over Cal Poly last week, but he’ll try for a better overall performance after completing 12-of-30 passes last week and less than 50 percent over the past two weeks. Northern Colorado should provide that opportunity with a pass defense that allows 63 percent of passes to be completed and 222 yards per game. The Montana running game can get going as well against a porous run defense, and the Grizzlies should just keep dominating on the other side of the ball. Montana’s defense only gives up 100 yards per game on the ground and has 13 interceptions, and should just boost those numbers against a team with 16 interceptions and only four touchdown passes. Montana might look past this game a bit with Cal Poly in the rear view mirror and the Bobcats coming up next week, but that wouldn’t really matter anyway against a team that is struggling so much. Northern Colorado offered a good performance last week, and isn’t likely to do it two weeks in a row in a game that should end up in a Grizzly blowout. Prediction: Montana 35, Northern Colorado 10
On tap this week is Northern Colorado, and the only thing that makes them slightly similar to UM is their name. The Griz are a Big Sky power with a history of dominance in the conference and the Bears are stumbling through their first season in I-AA. UNC really couldn't be any different -- or any worse.
This Great Falls Tribune article points to the many "contrasts" between the Griz and Bears:
