Bobcats Open Week-Long Road Trip with Ancient Rival Wyoming

Sunday, December 14

12 noon

Montana State University

Wyoming

Marcus Colbert and the Bobcats visit Wyoming's renovated Double A on Sunday at noon

Photo by: Scott Quintard

Bobcats Open Week-Long Road Trip with Ancient Rival Wyoming

12/12/2014 10:12:00 AM | Men's Basketball

MSU-Wyoming rivalry spans 90 years

By: Bill Lamberty

Montana State leaves for a week-long road trip this weekend, playing at Wyoming on Sunday before making stops in South Dakota and Portland, but Bobcat coach Brian Fish is taking a bigger-picture view.

"The best coaches in America are able to make their team better in the 30 days over Christmas break," he said. "It's always good to get finals week behind us and focus on basketball. I think it's a relief for the guys and they're excited to get out on the road."

The road trip the Cats depart for on Friday will last a week and cover a huge swath of the northwestern quarter of the United States, featuring a stop in Omaha and games at South Dakota and Portland. But, it begins with a trip to Wyoming for the second straight year. Montana State and the Cowboys get together at 12 noon on Sunday in a game televised by ROOT Sports.

In the Cowboys, Montana State encounters an experienced squad that rides an All-America caliber talent in Larry Nance, Jr., and a suffocating defense. Wyoming is 78^th in the nation in field goal percentage, but third in scoring defense in large part due to a team-oriented defensive approach and a deliberate, efficient offense.

"They are a very, very well-coached, senior-dominated team," Fish says. "They try to grind you into the ground. They do a great job using their offense to help them on defense. They make you chase them around, and that really helps them to guard you."

Wyoming is 8-2 on the season, carrying only close losses to California and SMU on the wrong side of the ledger, and is 8-0 at home. MSU stands 5-3, but has played better in recent times under its first-year head coach. In fact, after the season-opening four-game gauntlet that included a 58-point loss at Kentucky MSU is 3-1 (all at home), holding opponents to 40.3% shooting and 63.5 points per game. MSU out-rebounds its foes by more than two a game during that stretch of games.

MSU's production, like its experience, is spread around the perimeter. Senior shooting guard Michael Dison averages nearly 15 points a game shooting 42% from beyond the arc. Marcus Colbert, the team's junior point guard, is among the nation's top 50 with 5.8 assists per game, and he leads the squad with 11 steals. Danny Robison (8.6 ppg) and Eric Norman (5.6 ppg) have proven to be effective in their roles as inside-out big men. Norman's 14 blocked shots aids the squad's defensive effort.

After Sunday's game, MSU plays at South Dakota on Dec. 18 and at Portland on Dec. 20. The Cats' final home game before conference play is Dec. 23, when Wyoming visits Bozeman.