Montana Grizzlies Sports, Football and Basketball : Grizzoulian

Big game on the road. Griz looking to rebound from a tough loss. Need to move up in the standings. Guess what happened. Yep, they played terrible.

Well, the Griz made it drought (opposite of make it rain?) at the Dee Center tonight. The Griz shot 32 percent for the game, 20 percent in the first half. The Grizzlies shot 30 3-pointers tonight, they made five. Well done. One Matthew Martin led the way, shooting 1-10 from outside the painted arc and 3-13 overall. Fraught naught Gar and Sanchez, I have your Jordan Hasquet numbers: 2-8 from outside and 2-11 overall.  13 points, 0 rebounds. Interesting stat: CET led the scoring with 14.

The Griz trailed by 15+ the entire game and the final score was closer than it should've been. Anyone who takes solace in the fact that we made a run in garbage time is pathetic. I'd rather be a somewhat talented inconsistent team who plays crappy half the time and gets blown out by 10-15 than be the type of team that feels a certain pride when they say "hey, at least we made a run at the end" and still loses by 9.

The Griz need to win out to finish above .500 in conference and overall. Amazing. Who the hell let this happen? I mean you can blame coaches all you want but even if you have a knucklehead coach (I am not saying we do) a player has to step up and lead the guys. Even if your coach is an amazing leader of men, you still need a player to lead. Where has that been?

Seniors, I'm looking at you. Sure, do all you can with the minutes provided but sometimes that's not enough. I mean if I'm a senior, or pretty much anyone in the rotation, I'm legitimately furious as soon as things start dipping south. I start blowing people up and melting faces. Does anyone remember any player being seriously fired up at all this season?

Ohhhh, they have the flu. You know what, I shouldn't know that. This game came with built-in excuses. Players can't have that back-door. The Missoulian's preview article for this game was titled "Ailing Griz look to get back into groove." The lead quote is Tinkle saying people are sick. Why? He doesn't name names, but if you're stubborn enough not to name names, why not just not bring it up?

You know what you do... show them this, tell them to nut up because it's the stretch run then say that when they have a phenomenal game you'd not only say they had the flu but had been randomly experiencing paralysis on the right side of their body. On top of that, they did it for testicular cancer awareness. Hero.

At this point, anything short of making a run into the NCAA Tournament will be a gigantic disappointment. Even if they make the championship game. Because let's be honest, that championship game should've been played in Dahlberg OR after only one playoff game. You put yourself at the bottom of this hill, now climb it.

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Sunday's game against Weber State is a big one. The Griz will be looking to prove themselves against last year's conference champions while the Wildcats (4-4 in conference) will be looking to prove to everyone else that they're still contenders. On top of that, the game will be on TV.

For Sunday's special Show your Attitude on Altitude game, the first 1,500 general admission fans get let in free.

There's one problem, Sunday is Championship Sunday. Here's the solution, enjoy it and watch sports all day. The AFC Championship is on at 1. That should be pretty much over by the time the 2:00 tip rolls around. Then the Griz game should done by the 4:30 start of the NFC Championship game. It's like a 5 minute walk/ten minute stumble to the press box, where I will likely be headed to watch the Packers advance. Feel free to join me.

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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.

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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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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.

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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.

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Portland State saves their season with a 35-24 win over Sac State. The Vikings probably went into this game the same way Michigan will go into their conference schedule. PSU will not get great playoff seeding but they can still win the conference and make the playoffs. Unlike the Wolverines, the Viks can still win a National Championship. It's not likely, but as a Cubs fan, I like to think anyone can win once they get in the playoffs.

Montana State kills Dixie State, 61-7. Nice job guys, nice job. Some people mark this as some sort of sign that MSU is fine and will be something of a contender. The win is what it is. If you're proud of a D-II shilacking, that's not good. I'm not saying the Cats will or will not be a factor in the 'Sky but the only message this sends is that they can blow out a team from a lower division. Good to know.

NAU falls to Appalachian State, 34-21. It would've been nice to see a Big Sky team get mentioned on SC for beating the giant-killers from Boone, but it didn't happen as the Mountaineers won their 17th straight game. It could've been worse. If NAU can keep it within two possessions, maybe the Griz can pull off a win.

Weber State blown out by Cal Poly, 47-19. The Weber State secondary allowed Mustangs quarterback Jonathan Dally to rack up Colt Brennan-esque numbers in the loss. The kid tossed 6 TDs on 328 yards.

Northern Colorado loses to San Diego, 49-13. This type of score was expected with the Bears coming off a huge loss to D-II Chadron State. On a positive note, they did find a running back. David Woods finished with 180 all-purpose yards.

Eastern beats UC Davis, 41-31. It wasn't Bengals-Browns but the Eagles and Aggies combined for almost 1,000 total yards. The Aggies had more yards and the Eagles had more points.

Idaho State trounced by Oregon State, 61-10. You know the deal. Big Sky team plays FBS opponent, Big Sky team loses by 30+ while the FBS team puts up huge numbers. Whatever pays the bills.

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Besides more arrests, the last thing most Griz fans want is another dropdown quarterback. After the Josh Swogger experience, it looks like an incoming QB is more likely to figure out where the hell the bees went sooner than learn the Rob Phenicie offense. Don't worry, we're not getting another one -- but Weber State is. Alabama transfer Jimmy Barnes has decided to spend the next three years playing football at Weber State.

"Jimmy was a big time player on the high school level,” said McBride. "All the major schools in the country were after him. Not only does he have a strong arm, but he is a student of the game and makes intelligent decisions in the heat of battle...I have full confidence he will learn our system quickly and be ready to compete in Fall camp."

...

"I was really impressed with the campus and the school," said Barnes. "Coach McBride and Coach McGiven are both great football coaches and I look forward to learning a lot from them."

With Hauck's affinity for dropdown QBs and "win now so I can peace out ASAP" attitude, on first glance it seems like he would go after this kid. But then one has to think, who in their right mind would want to Ogden, Utah to play for a team coming of a 4-7 record? What was the appeal there? Maybe Hauck had enough confidence in his young quarterbacking core to restrain from attempting to chase down Jimmy.

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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.

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Remember when Vince Young supposedly scored a six on the Wunderlic test and we all thought he was completely incompetent before that was corrected to a 16? Well, someone has done worse and they're from right here in the Big Sky Conference.

Every Day Should Be Saturday is reporting that Weber State safety Bo Reed has scored an abysmal four on the test. This comes within just one point of that all-time low, a three held by Ravens' linebacker Roderick Green.

He really should've just gone for the outright record of two seeing as he really won't gain any recognition otherwise.

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The men's and women's tennis teams continued their solid play as the teams went a combined 2-1 over the weekend.

The men defeated the Idaho Vandals on Saturday after poor weather forced the matches inside. The win pulled their record back up to .500. The Griz started out the season 5-1 before losing six of eight.

The ladies played their second weekend in a row of .500 tennis as they beat Weber State on Friday for their first Big Sky win but lost to Northern Arizona on Sunday after a comeback bid came up short.

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There's been a bit of controversy surrounding the NCAA Tournament selection committee; most of which surrounding the snubbing of Syracuse and Drexel. Well, there is a lesser known controversy: Niagara is stuck in the play-in game and they're not happy.

This "opening round game" is supposed to include the two worst teams in the dance, normally based on RPI. Well, Niagara was ahead of four teams in terms of RPI; one of them was Weber.

Selection committee chair Gary Walters basically said he did this to avoid claims of racism as he thinks some out there believe the play-in game is reserved for predominantly black schools.

"First of all, I think we are, as you know, sensitive to the historically black colleges..."

If this is the case, I still can't grasp why Weber isn't in this game. Aside from one guy, Niagara is a team comprised entirely of African American players. Weber is from Utah. Robin Williams once called Utah "the whitest f***ing state in the union."

When a team has player who has overcome gang violence to become conference freshman of the year, you can't play the race card.

Walters also said Niagara is in this game because they won the conference tourney, but not the regular season title but honestly, if you're going to bring up race at all — which you probably shouldn't  — Weber should be in this game.

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From what I saw of this game, which wasn't much because it filled me with a jealous rage, it was eerily similar to the Griz game last night. NAU was down by 21 (19 in the second half!) and came back to get it within 4. Sure, they never went up like the Griz did but it was pretty close before they let it slip at the end.

I really don't want to describe it much more because it's really kind of frustrating. Watching Weber State get their dance tickets was probably only comparable to how one feels they walk in on their significant other in bed with someone else. "These guys are going instead of us?!"

And where were our beloved Grizzlies when all this was getting underway? OK, I don't know where all of them were but I saw a couple guys at the Food Zoo. THE FOOD ZOO! DURING THE CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME. I pray to God this never happens again because it was honestly one of the saddest sights I have ever seen.

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It seems like the Griz have been playing big game after big game -- with the exception of Northern Colorado -- and this is what happens when you're playing from behind in the standings. Tonight's game is big because a win means they get a home game in the conference tournament. Just one of many games with implications, the Griz haven't done so well in these games.

Here, in my opinion, are the three biggest games of the year for the Griz:

• vs Idaho State. The Griz came into this game at 2-2 in conference play and had a shot re-establish themselves as a contender by beating hot-starting ISU. The Bengals entered the game 4-0 and went on to throttle UM by ten in the Den.
• vs Weber State. Weber came into the Zoo in first place and the Griz needed wins to scramble back into the conference picture. The Griz were trailing by double-digits in the second half before apparently turning the season around with a 90-86 victory.
• @ Weber State. This was arguably the biggest game of the year. It was first place versus second place and the winner would control where the conference tourney would be played. The Griz fell in a close one: 73-67.
• vs NAU. The Griz needed this one to help secure their shot at the 2-seed after it no longer it looked like they would be able to host the tournament. Griz came out slow and were fighting from behind the entire game. They never made it all the way back and lost 88-81.

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It's taken me this long to recover from the sock to the stomach that was last night's game against Weber State. Last night's realization that I've been here at UM two years and will likely have to wait another season if I want to see the Griz clinch a berth in the NCAA Tournament here in Missoula.

I'm not going to gripe a bunch or provide a ton of analysis, i just want to toss out a little insight and disappointment over the way the most important possession of the season was handled.

It came with under 2 minutes left and the Griz trailing by between 4 and 6. Yeah, I'm sorry I don't have exact figures for what I'm calling the "most important possession" but anyone who listened to the broadcast last night knows it was tough at times to get the correct score.

Back to the game, the possession happened immediately following a time out. Coming out of the break, Weber State went into a zone and totally confused the Griz. They really didn't have anything to match it. There was no solid play and it sounded like the Griz just panicked.

The possession ended with the ball in the hands of Bryan Ellis. He took the shot and was stuffed, the ball went the other way and WSU got some easy points. Then the game was over. BE was having the game of his life but he just shouldn't be taking this shot. He's just not a shooter. It's the only knock on his game; he's good at driving and dishing as well as an incredible defender but on top of all that he has the worst shooting percentage on the team.

In situations like this, when teams go to a zone and things break down, I'd say give it to Hasquet. You don't give it down low to Drew (he hasn't been able to finish when guys collapse on him) unless he is absolutely going to kick it out.

My point is Bryan Ellis just isn't a Steve Kerr or John Paxson type point guard. He took the shot at the end of regulation in the first WSU game and it clanked off pretty badly. Keep doing your thing Bryan but stay within yourself. He played a great game but I just don't have him taking, arguably, the biggest shot of the season.

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Going into Wednesday night's big 1 vs 2 matchup, Weber State(17-10, 10-4) reminds me a bit of the state they reside in: pretty bland. Sure Utah has some great skiing and Ty Detmer while Weber State is in first place but that's pretty much where the overwhelming excitement ends.

If you take a look at their schedule, there aren't many really big wins or disappointing losses, at least not in conference play. They're just out there doing their thing and rockin the purple attire.

Glancing at their preseason schedule it's almost as if they played two conference schedules: one against the Big Sky and one against the Great Salt Lake Conference. They played Utah State and Southern Utah twice and BYU and Utah once. They went 1-6 in that stretch, beating only Southern Utah, who is dying to get out of the fictional Great Salt Lake Conference and into the Big Sky. Their biggest test came against the University of Washington and of course they failed worse than Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football.

When it comes to Big Sky play, the Wildcats have been consistent, with three of their four losses coming to teams they had a reasonable chance of losing. The four losses came at home to Idaho State (back before they rolled over) early in the season, back to back at Montana and at Montana State then by 15 on the road to EWU. The Montana loss was a of the OT variety as the Griz came from 11 down in the second half to beat the Wildcats. This was a major turning point in the Griz season as that game sparked a stretch of 6-1 ball with the only blemish being the PSU incident, which really shouldn't be brought up here ever again.

This game will likely determine who hosts the BSC tournament as the Wildcats only have lowly Sac State left on their schedule following the UM game. The Griz have a NAU and UNC at home and ISU on the road.

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I mentioned before that there are two sets of power rankings for the Big Sky Conference. One may ask why I don't put out a set out of power rankings and here's the answer: no one cares where the bad teams rank and if you want to know who I think is the best team in Big Sky, look at the theme of the blog. I don't see any Weber guys up in the banner. Plus who's gone dancing two years straight? Yeah, that'd be us.

Back to the power rankings. Ian Ruder's (Vikings Blog) came out today and he has the Griz firmly at second behind Weber and in front of Northern Arizona. Another thing about power rankings is that there relatively worthless when who actually is number one will be decided on the court in only a couple days.

For his rationale for putting everyone where they are and the complete rankings, check them out at his blog.

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Last night's game had its ups and downs but the Griz came out with a win over EWU and stayed in second place, two games back of Weber State.

The game's two best player's had to be Jordan Hasquet and Stu Mayes. Jordan was great on the offensive end, scoring 26, and getting to the basket for some big shots when the Griz needed them most.

Stuart Mayes was great on the defensive side of the ball, spending most of the second half inside Rodney Stuckey's shirt. Mayes, with help from Matt Dlouhy, held Stuckey to only 19 points.

The Griz needed this win, coming off a home loss to PSU. Things could be worse, but they're still in the thick of the BSC race with home game left against the first place Wildcats.

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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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Not only did the Griz avoid a major setback loss, they came out and played their most complete game of the year in a  74-71 victory over the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks.

Andrew Strait was very huge for the Griz hitting all eleven of his shots from the field and scoring a game-high 23. Jordan Hasquet hit some big shots and BE led the offense. I've said it before but everyone is beginning to find their role on this team. Hell, even Big Dave Vanderjagt got a minute or two and was able to get his first points.

The win puts the Griz a game back of first place Idaho State (5-2) and Weber State (6-3). Those two faced each other tonight in Pocatello and the Wildcats came away with a win. There are currently four teams tied for that second place spot.

I don't have time to go into too much detail seeing as I have to read almost an entire book by tomorrow (don't you miss college?) but I'm going to try to put up a series of posts on all the factors that contributed to this great win after I go to a couple classes.

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A Missoulian article by Bob Meseroll says the Griz season "hung in the balance" in Saturday's WSU game and the Griz were able to avoid a "devastating loss." The problem is that the potential for another one looms tonight in Flagstaff.

Yes, the Griz won probably their biggest game of the season on Saturday night but tonight's game at NAU good be just as bad as Saturday's game was good.

This morning's Kaimin says both NAU and UM are looking to turn their season's around, and even though the game is big, this headling doesn't really seem right. NAU is 5-3 in BSC play and that's not bad considering how rough conference play for just about everyone this year. After the WSU game it looks like the Griz have turned their season around, they just need to keep it going the right direction.

This feeling was of having everything on track is not new to this season as most fans felt the same after the win over PSU on the road to open BSC play. Following that, they lost to EWU in a big test before falling to Sac State to make it two in a row.

If the Griz win tonight, they will get closer to WSU or ISU as those two face each other tonight in Pocatello. If the Griz win and ISU loses, the Griz would be only a game back of both the Bengals and Wildcats, who would be tied for first.

These two games are huge. The Griz need this one for the standings and themselves. They need to prove they can win big games on the road. Last year's team won in Flagstaff to get the Griz dancing, so lets hope this year's team can win another big one.

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A series of "upsets" over the weekend have made the race for the BSC regular season title much closer and put the Griz right back into its peloton.

The Griz lost to ISU last Wednesday night, another big road win for the Bengals, and gave up and assumed the Big Sky tournament would be played in Pocatello. Then the Cats decided to mess things up a bit.

Montana State beat ISU Saturday when Akbar Abdul-Ahad missed a three at the buzzer. Normally I wouldn't care at all who did this but I made fun of this guy for talking to the cheerleaders in Missoula before inbounding a pass and he responded by saying he'd knock down a three for me, which he did a couple seconds later. A little after that he turned it over and the Griz knocked down a three and now this. Karma.

More importantly, this game puts the Griz only two games back of the Bengals so if they manage to win in Pocatello, they only need to make up one more game elsewhere.

The Griz also sit only a game and a half of Weber State and Northern Arizona as WSU lost to Matt Martin the Griz and NAU lost the Portland State.

This comes with a couple huge games coming up this week: Griz vs NAU and WSU @ ISU.

Related: Around the Big Sky [Vikings Blog]

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Outside of last year's upset win over Stanford, Saturday's overtime win over Weber State was probably the most enjoyable Griz game I've been to. The game was definitely great, but it did entail a male cheerleader getting hit in the back of the head with a Perkins mini-ball. Details after the jump.

For about three quarters of the game, the crowd was in persistent vegetative state, only making basic instinctual reactions to promotional giveaways and the halftime show. Then Matt Martin caught fire and Mike Chavez charged off the bench toss everyone into a minor frenzy.

At that point the crowd was really getting into and making a lot of noise on the defensive end, this was probably the first time all season that the students were consistently standing and trying to be involved. The problem was that things were loud on defensive end but more quiet than an empty lecture hall when our Griz on offense.

This idea of being quiet on offense is normally a good idea in football games with the timing of plays relying on snap counts that everyone on offense needs to hear, but in basketball one play is called, sometimes simply by a hand gesture, so silence isn't required.

I watched an entire afternoon of college basketball and every other fan base (UCLA, UConn, Illinois) made some noise when their team had the ball.

I tried to let the two male cheerleaders right in front of me know that they should probably do something that prevented the crowd from dying after each defensive stop and having to get back up again once the other team had the ball. They kind of ignored me and said someone told them not to. When I asked who, they had no response.

I kept on nagging them for quite some time, telling everyone to be quiet so the team could hear the snap count, things like that. After quite a bit of mocking them for not cheering on offense and being oblivious to the length of the overtime, one of the two guys took a Griz/Perkins mini-ball and said "here, put this in your mouth." I didn't think that was very clever, original or nice so once he walked away I lightly tossed it (seriously, I'm not being sarcastic, I didn't throw it) at him. It hit him right in the back of the head.

I grinned and he was pretty agitated so once he got back from his on-court prancing, he said "Bye" and, to be blunt, went and taddled on me. He plead is case to probably three different security people with none of them seeming too interested. Finally, one police officer followed him over to me and nicely said "Um, we need to make sure you don't throw any more balls." I said "no problem" and it was pretty much over.

I kind of kept laughing at cheerleader and remarked "I'm still here," which he responded to by saying "you're a sweetheart, aren't you?" I'm not really sure how it was an insult, but it was a little weirded me out in ways a normal insult couldn't.

I'm really looking forward to the next game after getting a "Hey asshole!" from him on the way to class this morning.

The point is I wasn't just some stupid drunk student who decided I was going to start throwing crap at people I didn't like. I had a reason, and I think it was a good one. If some of the best college hoops programs can cheer on offense, we should too.

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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.

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Tonight the Montana Grizzlies take on Sacramento State in the Tree City as they look to win two of three on the road to start conference play.

The Griz are coming off a 74-71 loss to Eastern Washington. Winning two out of three on the road to start conference play would be great but imagine if we would've had a shot at 3-0. It'd be like starting off 20 meters down the track in a 100 yard dash seeing as the Griz only lost one game in Dahlberg last year. A road win over probably their biggest contender could have been very influential in deciding where the BSC tournament is hosted.

That game's over though and going into this game, the Griz come in looking once again like BSC contenders. They are ranked second on Idaho State Journal writer Kelis Robinett's BSC power rankings.

This doesn't say too much seeing as it's the second week of conference play and only one team has come out of it unscathed. This team is Weber State, who beat the Northerns and if NCAA Tournament selects were made today, ESPN says they'd be a 15 seed. Needless to say, the BSC is about as wide open as Joakim Noah's teeth.

Even though the Griz once again appear to be contenders, they are still looking for more consistent play. If there was a stat that measured the scoring differential about 5 minutes into the game, I'm guessing they dominate this useless stat like Mike Vanderjagt dominated FG accuracy. Yeah, it only counts if you make them/have the lead at the end of the game.

It seems as though the Griz have come out great and then seem to fade towards the end of the first half with the opposing team making a run and usually leading going into the break. Then, when the Griz should be coming out strong after the break, they fade a little bit more. The game is usually decided with somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes left in the game They either drop out of contention or make a run to turn it into a game. This sounds like an awful way to play the game.

Info on Sac State: they're 6-8 overall and 1-1 in conference play. They beat Northern Colorado but lost to Northern Arizona. Note of interest: They got trounced by Mamba Karl and Boise State by 33 while our Griz beat them by 4.

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