Bobcats Host Weber State in Meaningful Game Thursday

Brian Fish insists there have been no significant transformations leading to his team's road sweep last weekend at Northern Colorado and North Dakota.

"We haven't made a trade," Montana State's first-year men's basketball coach said, "we're still the same team. We have some deficiencies that are obvious. We've fought them, and hopefully we've learned how to handle those deficiencies, how to hide them a little bit, by how we've played."

The next opportunity for Fish and his team to display the characteristics Fish appreciates so much about his first Bobcat squad – "The kids play hard, they keep fighting," – comes Thursday night. Montana State hosts Weber State at 7:05 pm in Worthington Arena. The Wildcats occupy eighth place in the league standings, the final spot in the Big Sky Tournament were the season to end suddenly, but at 5-8 in league play are only two games ahead of the 3-10 Bobcats.

"It's nice to have a game Thursday night here against the crown jewel of the league in the last decade," Fish said of the matchup against the defending Big Sky Champions and the team chosen to win the league in the preseason. "If we play well, (the game) will mean something."

Last week's road breakthroughs featured the team's top sustained offensive performance of the season. Fish cited his team's willingness to put the ball on the deck as a primary reason. "Driving the ball has been rewarded for us," he said. "It started against Northern Colorado with Mike (Dison) and Zach (Green) getting to the rim and finishing and seeing that they can get there. That certainly helped."

Suddenly-hit Eric Norman drove the bus on Saturday. A 30.7% shooting in the season's first 24 games, Norman exploded for a 9-for-10 effort in the win at North Dakota, including 4-for-5 from the three-point arc.

"Eric made some shots that maybe he's struggled with a little bit this year," Fish said. "We've adjusted his shot a little bit and stuff like that, but you get to this time of year and seniors see the end is near. It's not uncommon to see an uptick late in the season by a senior. Maybe that's got a little bit to do with it. I'd be hard-pressed to think anybody had a better game in the league overall on Saturday. He's very deserving of the (Big Sky Player of the Week) award (which Norman earned Monday)."

Norman averages 8.6 rebounds per game in Big Sky contests, the third-best mark in the conference. He runs head-first into league-leader Joel Bolomboy when Weber State arrives Thursday. Bolomboy is the only player averaging a double-double in conference action (13.0 points, 10.3 rebounds).

Considerably more of the offensive load for Weber State falls to Bolomboy this week, after the team's leading scorer Jeremy Senglin was lost to a broken jaw last weekend. While Fish knows that stands as a road block for the Wildcats, he expects WSU coach Randy Rahe to bring a revamped and effective attack to Bozeman.

"(Senglin is) a good player," Fish said, "but Randy's also a well-respected coach and he's had a week to prepare for that. He's going to throw some different stuff at us. Any time you lose 20% of your scoring and what he does you're going to have to adjust. When you lose your leading rebounder you can gang-rebound and hide it, but he's their primary ball-handler. That will be the biggest adjustment, the same as if we lost Marcus (Colbert)."

A college basketball season is one long series of adjustments, and after the league slowed down senior guard Michael Dison around the middle point of the conference season – the remarkably consistent scorer averaged over 18 points during the first seven conference games, but just 10 points over the next four – he has answered.

"(Against Idaho and Eastern Washington) he didn't play the way he wanted to play because he settled for some things when (better) things were there," Fish said. "We didn't necessarily have a conversation or anything, he just came in and watched tape and was upset, and that's the character of the kid. He was like, 'OK, I'm sitting on my three, it's not going in, how can I (positively) affect the game?' The three he hit against North Dakota coming down the stretch, it was one of those threes he took his head out of it and just shot it because he was open, and it went in. It was kind of like the icing on the cake, you could see he felt good about himself. You can see he's changed his game because he does a great job evaluating himself."

Everything else aside, Fish is happy to enter the final three weeks of the 2015 season with a team whose energy and enthusiasm levels remain high.

"When you're faced with losing streaks and you're not winning a lot of games you just focus the task at hand day-by-day and keep it very simple," Fish said. "Half the battle at this time of year is having kids that are still excited about playing, and I mean that at 6-19 or 19-6. There are a lot of guys that are just ready to get the season over, and I have not felt that way with this team."

After Thursday's Weber State game, the Bobcats host another ancient rival, Idaho State, on Saturday at 2:35 pm in Worthington Arena.

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Michael Dison

Eric Norman

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