Montana Grizzlies Sports, Football and Basketball : Grizzoulian

The Montana Grizzlies lost third straight road game as they fell to Oral Roberts, whose season will likely be highlighted by their victory over then #2 Kansas in the second game of the year.

This comes after three straight wins, all at home, over teams that my high school (led by Gonzaga commit and sister's ex-boyfriend Steven Gray) could contend with.

The Griz beat the Golden Eagles by 15 last year at home as part of the Bracket Buster series so they had to return the favor. I don't think they know that they just had to play them at home, not return the favor of supplying a double-digit victory. The Griz ended up losing 69-58 in a game that felt a lot like the loss to Western Kentucky. The Griz went into the half trailing by 5 but ORU went on a run to start the half (we used to do that) and the Griz never really got all the way back into the game.

Somewhere towards the middle of the second half -- well somewhere between 5 or 10 minutes in -- Bryan Ellis went to bench with four fouls. The Griz were down by 12 and it seemed like it was only going to get worse. But in came Cameron Rundles.

Shortly after that the Griz went on a 7-0 run with Cam scoring at least four and dropping a dime during that period. The lead was down to 6 before ORU scored and then Tinks inexplicably pulls Cam for BE and the lead blows up faster than a tennis ball filled with match-heads. This didn't make sense to me. You're on a run so you pull the player that triggered it.

I mean go ahead and put in BE, a good on-ball defender, but don't kill the run. I don't think I've ever seen a game swing so dramatically on a couple of poor substitutions.

Cameron Rundle's play has been convincing enough to me; this will be his team for the next three seasons so why not hand it to him now? Cam should start on Friday at Portland and throughout conference play, which starts after Portland with three games on the road.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks

What is wrong with the Griz basketball team? Honestly, this team is just as talented, if not moreso, than last year's team and it just isn't showing. When talent is not meeting expectations, coaching has to come into question.

The following clip is from a recent Bill Simmon's article on Doc Rivers. The Griz players don't give too many quotes after games but if they did I guarantee they would be saying some of the things listed below.

See, it's not hard to tell when your coach stinks. You usually know when your players are constantly saying things like "We just need to sustain that intensity for four quarters," "We need to play the kind of defense we're capable of playing," "We can take big leads, now we need to learn how to keep them," "We're a young team, so we're still learning how to bring the same consistency every night," "We have to start getting stops," and my personal favorite, "We need to learn how to execute down the stretch."

In last night's 81-65 blowout, the Hilltoppers made a run at the end of the first half to go into the break tied after trailing double digits previously. After the half the Griz came out flatter than a Monopoly board and Western Kentucky went on a 22-5 run. This would've never happened with last year's team. Last year the Griz would ALWAYS come out on a high and make a big run to start the second half. These runs were a staple of Larry Krystkowiak's motivational skills.

Coach K's recruiting skills also showed last night as Cameron Rundles looked very capable of running the point. He had 13 points, 3 assists and 3 rebounds in 16 minutes.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks