Thursday, February 12
7:05 pm
Montana State University
at
Northern Colorado
Blake Brumwell and the Bobcats battle the Bears on Thursday
Photo by: Ruth Shellenberg
Bobcats Begin Round Two of Big Sky Play in Greeley
2/12/2015 5:33:00 PM | Men's Basketball
MSU battles Bears for second time
Montana State begins its second trip through the Big Sky Conference this week, visiting Northern Colorado on Thursday night. Bobcat coach Brian Fish is interested to see how that familiarity affects his squad.
"We've done this with Wyoming," Fish said of an earlier home-and-home matchup this season. "We do have a sense of what they're going to do, a little sense of what worked the first time, how you want to guard it. Some guys have a natural ability to play well against a certain team so you get that on tape. Northern Colorado is a good, athletic team, but we felt we had a chance to win that game (in January)."
The Cats fought to the end in a 62-54 early January loss in Bozeman. Since then, the Bears have roared to a 7-4 start and entrenchment in the upper echelon of the Big Sky standings. The Bobcats have lost 10 of their first 11 conference games, although, as in the first UNC matchup, Montana State has lost only two of those 10 games by more than 10 points.
Much of that, Fish says, comes from sheer effort. "I think it's been outstanding," he said. "I couldn't ask for any more. When you're trying to do something for the long haul effort is a big key of that, and our guys have consistently put the effort out. I thought our 80 minutes was the hardest we've played for a weekend. To play as hard as we have through the missed shots that we have really surprises me at times."
Northern Colorado has been among the Big Sky's top teams on the strength of a potent, balanced offense. The Bears stand third in the Big Sky at 75.4 points a game and with a 49.9% field goal percentage. Tevin Svihovec is 16th in the league in scoring during the conference season, and his 1,275 career points is second-most among active Big Sky players. Cameron Michael averages 13.1 points a game, while Dominique Lee averages 6.4 rebounds a game.
The play of junior forward Danny Robison, averaging over 15 points and seven rebounds a game in the last five, has provided a boost lately. While the Bobcats have struggled mightily on the offensive end, the same is not true of the team's defense. MSU among the top five teams in the league in both scoring and shooting defense in conference contests.
Fish said his team will continue to hone its offense. "At this time of year you spend quite a bit more time on yourselves than you do the other team. When you get to February cleaning up your offense is a big key. You start to get into the season and guys think they know things and all of a sudden they become more predictable than they realize. That's when you go on tape and you get things down. Offense is where you really spend a lot of times cleaning things up, and (Monday) we spent probably 40 minutes going over just offensive sets again."
Tipoff is at 7:05 pm Thursday, and audio and video of the game is available at www.msubobcats.com.
"We've done this with Wyoming," Fish said of an earlier home-and-home matchup this season. "We do have a sense of what they're going to do, a little sense of what worked the first time, how you want to guard it. Some guys have a natural ability to play well against a certain team so you get that on tape. Northern Colorado is a good, athletic team, but we felt we had a chance to win that game (in January)."
The Cats fought to the end in a 62-54 early January loss in Bozeman. Since then, the Bears have roared to a 7-4 start and entrenchment in the upper echelon of the Big Sky standings. The Bobcats have lost 10 of their first 11 conference games, although, as in the first UNC matchup, Montana State has lost only two of those 10 games by more than 10 points.
Much of that, Fish says, comes from sheer effort. "I think it's been outstanding," he said. "I couldn't ask for any more. When you're trying to do something for the long haul effort is a big key of that, and our guys have consistently put the effort out. I thought our 80 minutes was the hardest we've played for a weekend. To play as hard as we have through the missed shots that we have really surprises me at times."
Northern Colorado has been among the Big Sky's top teams on the strength of a potent, balanced offense. The Bears stand third in the Big Sky at 75.4 points a game and with a 49.9% field goal percentage. Tevin Svihovec is 16th in the league in scoring during the conference season, and his 1,275 career points is second-most among active Big Sky players. Cameron Michael averages 13.1 points a game, while Dominique Lee averages 6.4 rebounds a game.
The play of junior forward Danny Robison, averaging over 15 points and seven rebounds a game in the last five, has provided a boost lately. While the Bobcats have struggled mightily on the offensive end, the same is not true of the team's defense. MSU among the top five teams in the league in both scoring and shooting defense in conference contests.
Fish said his team will continue to hone its offense. "At this time of year you spend quite a bit more time on yourselves than you do the other team. When you get to February cleaning up your offense is a big key. You start to get into the season and guys think they know things and all of a sudden they become more predictable than they realize. That's when you go on tape and you get things down. Offense is where you really spend a lot of times cleaning things up, and (Monday) we spent probably 40 minutes going over just offensive sets again."
Tipoff is at 7:05 pm Thursday, and audio and video of the game is available at www.msubobcats.com.
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