Brian Fish wants to keep his eyes on the future.
Montana State’s head men’s basketball coach has been in Bozeman for a year now. Over the past 12 months, he’s endured a trying rebuilding process outside his comfort zone. For the last 11 years as a top assistant on Dana Altman’s staff, Fish was part of teams at Creighton and Oregon that qualified for the NCAA Tournament. This year’s Bobcat squad failed to make it to the Big Sky Championship tournament.
Fish was hired just two weeks before the late signing period to a Bobcat team that lost four seniors along with two of the three players who had committed during the early period to former coach Brad Huse and his staff. The loss of stud big man recruit Kavell Bigby-Williams (a non-qualifier from Great Britain) triggered a domino effect that meant Fish had to scramble to sign Arizona big man Quinn Price late and was forced to play 7-foot fellow Brit Bradley Fisher, by all accounts a project player who should’ve redshirted.
Because Huse and his staff relied so heavily on junior college recruiting, Fish inherited a team with just a handful of veterans, few who had played much at all. Junior point guard Marcus Colbert (9.4 points per game), senior shooting guard Michael Dison (6.2 ppg) sophomore swingman Stephan Holm (5.7 ppg) and junior versatile wing Terrell Brown (6.5 ppg) were a part of Huse’s rotations. But junior forward Danny Robison, senior center Blake Brumwell and senior forward Eric Norman combined for less than seven points and seven rebounds per game the season before Fish arrived. Each was called upon to start in Fish’s first season.
The bare cupboard combined with the late firing of Huse and hiring of Fish set the Bobcats up for a brutal season. The team fostered a few bright spots — three wins in four outings during the team’s first home stand and a road sweep of Northern Colorado and North Dakota come to mind — but overall, times were tough at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse and elsewhere. MSU endured a 14-game losing streak, finished last in the league in scoring and field goal shooting and saw attendance dip to 1,650 fans per game.
The tough season was not to be unexpected given the circumstances. Fish received praise from coaches and fans around the league for how hard the under-manned Bobcats played. Despite a 7-25 overall record in the first year, the rebuilding project seems to have promise and the future looks bright.
On Wednesday, March 25, Fish sat down with Bobcat Beat to reluctantly talk about his first year in Bozeman and excitedly address the future of his program. For full audio, click here
Bobcat Beat: First of all, let’s talk about recruiting. I know you can’t talk about specific guys, but the late signing period begins April 15. You already have Rock Island, Illinois guard Tyler Hall, Eastside Catholic (Seattle) guard Mandrell Worthy and Cretin-Denham Hall (Minneapolis) forward Sam Neumann signed from the early period along with junior college swingman Quinton Everett (Gillette JC) on board. What is the plan for recruiting these next few weeks as you try to fill out your roster?
Fish: “We have some major things we have to attack. We first of all have to attack speed so we will look to recruit a point guard and attack speed.
Lightning-fast junior college point guard Nahjee Matlock will sign with Montana State in a few weeks.
“I want to have a guy who can pick up a guy and full court press him himself and allow us to self-press with one guy. Marcus does a lot of really good things but that’s not necessarily something he does well. I think we can play Marcus and a point guard together when we get one, especially in late-game situations because Marcus can really do some things.
“I want to get a speed point guard so we can press and pick a guy up full court. Also, we have to attack points in the paint. We will probably look at signing a few bigs who can score in the paint and give us that option. I asked Danny to do too much posting up in the paint and scoring. I thought Danny had a great year but I thought when he lost his confidence is when I moved him in and asked him to score more in the paint. We needed it but I think it hurt him overall and it will relieve him if we move him out a little bit more.”
BB: In your system when you say you need more points in the paint, does that come from a traditional pivot five or more guys who can get buckets off energy?
Fish: “Our system is build off a one, a one and a half, a two, three and a four. We really don’t have a standard five. That comes from just the shear fact that I think there’s only five or six out there.
“Arizona has one (Kaleb Tarczewski), Gonzaga has one (Frank Karnowski) and Kentucky has 10 (laughs). There’s just not a lot out there. And when you look at these teams in the NCAA Tournament, they look bigger and stuff but really, teams are getting away with 6-foot-8 big guys with athleticism. That’s the way we want to go.”
BB: First year in the league, did you see your system can work?
Fish: “Yeah. I credit a lot of the job Montana did with (Washington transfer) Martin Breunig because I’d seen him at the Pac 12. He’s come in and certainly been, in my opinion, the standard bearer of a big man in the league. And here’s a guy who’s 6-8 who can go inside and outside, not necessarily 3-point shooter, but 17 and in he’s pretty good. That’s the type of guy you have to have to win the league. That’s the type of guy Eastern Washington has (Venky Jois) and the type of guy Weber State has (Joel Bolomboy). That’s something we have to have.
“Blake gave me everything he had and would give me everything every single night but we just have to improve on our ability to score down low.”
BB: I know you are looking for that on the recruiting trail. Quinn Price is a 6-foot-9 guy with some athleticism but he’s so far away in terms of development. Do you see that potential in him and how far away is he?
Fish: “It’s funny how things work out because originally I would have redshirted Quinn. When we didn’t get a certain player in, he went from needing to play. Now I’ve talked to Quinn in our individual meetings about possibly redshirting him next year and I think it would be better because now he knows what it takes to play at this level physicality wise, locked in mentally wise and stuff like that that this year coming up would be much more beneficial because we just had the year we just got through. It’s funny how that’s worked out. But I really expect some great growth from him.
“Right now, he’s 209. I want to get him up to 230. I want to increase his strength. His athleticism won’t fade with that amount of weight on him. It will probably increase. Now he understands what he needs to do to get ready. He understands scouting reports. Now we have to slow it down for him.”
BB: His physical potential, how raw was he when you got him in comparison to how raw you thought he was?
Fish: “He was about what I thought from the whole get-go, the problem was his role changed. I always talk baseball, but it’s like that reliever that only throws one inning. He’s pretty good for one inning but if you ask him to be an eight-inning starter, all of a sudden you see his flaws. I asked Quinn to do some things and it’s my fault that Quinn didn’t have the year that maybe some of the fans wanted him to have. But it was because he was asked to do too much.
“That’s what I want to see take place overall on the team. Danny is a really, really good player. Marcus is a really good player. I just asked them to do more than I should’ve and sometimes they got exposed.”
BB: Next year, will that be a main priority early is redefining roles?
Fish: “Very much, very much. And with the kids we are adding, I want it to be when we put a lineup out there, I want there to have been competition and you beat somebody out to earn that spot. Creating competition, creating the I have to come to work every day mindset to keep my spot or I need to adjust to earn a spot is something that is very big in our program this coming year.”
BB: Danny, you mentioned throwing a bunch of pressure on him putting him down in the paint. Going into his senior year, do you see him more as a guy who plays on the wing?
Fish: “Our four man plays up top. Danny hit 34 or 35 3s this year and I could see him knocking down 40 or 45 next year. I want to create some mismatch drives with him but not that bury him under the paint and try to post him up. I think we can get away with it one or two times.
“The other thing that will help is that our shooting percentages (39 percent from the floor, 35.8 percent from 3) allowed teams to sag in. If we shoot the ball better, it will open up some things for some post ups.”
BB: We talked about it all year about how there were some heavy expectations heaped on guys who maybe hadn’t been there before. Do you expect a big mental jump from especially a guy like Danny in being able to handle that next year?
Fish: “I do. That’s something I’ve talked to Marcus about and Danny about in their individual meetings. They now have to transfer after one year of playing for us to let the guys know when they are playing pick up games, ‘Hey, that won’t play for this staff. You have to do this. Hey, this is the cut you have to make, this is what you have to do.’
“Danny is going from — and pardon me for being harsh — from a two-point per game scorer to a 10-points per game scorer. Now, in the locker room, he’s got credibility with the guys when he tells them that won’t play at this level. He has locker room credibility and that means so much to build a team. Marcus can walk in and tell guys what to do and now his teammates are like, ‘He’s sixth man of the year’, he’s this, he’s that. Those guys have to take their locker room credibility and impose it on the new guys.”
BB: Do you expect Marcus to rise to be the unquestioned leader of this group next year?
Fish: “Yes. He and Danny both started to move that direction later. They both started to help Blake out more. We will really, really miss the void Blake filled. He provided a leadership and everything about the team that is hard to do. Blake did that. Marcus should be able to do it from the point of I’ve did this, done this, do this and we are going to be able to get where we want to go. He should be able to do some things without even saying anything. If he’s out-working somebody, he’s got the credibility that the other guy should work harder because that’s what it takes to average 13 points per game.”
BB: With the guys you are bringing in, do you still expect Steph to be your spark off the bench?
Fish: “I don’t know. I think we should see incredible growth from Zach (Green) followed by Steph. Steph is one of those guys, and it’s my fault, you learn to coach guys and if Steph doesn’t trust you, he’s not going to do what you ask him to do. He’s about trust. He’s wired a little different. I love how he is. I love how he does things. But we really made some advancement with him in the last six weeks of him starting to trust us. I thought he guarded better and talked better and I thought he helped the game even in some situations when his shot wasn’t going in. And he used to not be able to do that. He’s got to take one more step.
“But at the end of the day, when you have a guy who misses four or five games and he still hits 50 3-pointers and he shoots it at 42 percent and does what he does, again he’s a guy who if he improves his defense, he can really have an influence on our team.”
BB: Is it just a matter of belief in terms of engaging in his athleticism? He’s way more athletic than you think he is.
Fish: “No question. And I don’t think he understands that. He’ll make a play in a game and you’ll kind of look around and go ‘Did that happen?’ He had two or three dunks this last year that were Pac-12 level dunks. He does that without even knowing.
“But I don’t think he trusts himself and I don’t think he trusts the game. He takes so much pride in that he’s a 3-point shooter that he’s let the rest of his game fail or fall off. I’m trying to push that other level because I do think his athleticism is upper level in the Big Sky and I think his shooting is obviously that. I think his defense could move that way if he commits to is.”
BB: And Zach, you mentioned that he is going to have the most growth? In terms of his learning curve, where is he? Did he make the progress you needed him to in Year 1?
Fish: “You know, it’s funny. Where I really saw it was when I threw January tapes in and then threw in February tapes. You see how hard he was playing. He was going to the basket and finishing. He was getting eight and 10 points a couple of games where he was getting the shots I think he can be effective with.
“He’s got to improve his leg strength. His hamstrings and thighs have to improve because I think he can move toward a defensive lockdown type of guy. Sefalosha from Oklahoma City. That could be Zach, a guy who can lock a guy down. He’s the type of guy who can score 10 points and we never run a play for him. He can get a steal, a putback, a baseline cut and throw it down to him. He can get free throws, offensive rebounds. He can do some things where you don’t need to run plays for him to keep him engaged.
“Again, that’s why I want to improve the speed because if we improve the speed, his steals…if we can get more pressure on the ball handler, his steals will increase because he’s really good at shooting through gaps.”
BB: A football analogy here…Tim Cramsey is always talking about how they want to run 80 to 85 plays a game. Is there a number related to your system that is indicative to the pace you want to play at?
Fish: “I’ve changed my philosophy a little bit as a first year head coach. I used to think I want shooters. Now I’ve changed that. Now I want makers (laughs).
“If we get the exact same attempts as we did this year and we would’ve shot the overall percentage of the league (9,227-of-20,615 or 44.7 percent), we would’ve led the league in scoring. We got the attempts. We got the ball up. And we are certainly going to press a lot more as we increase our speed. But it was our percentages that kept our average down. Our attempts were fine. Probably the area this team exceeded my expectations the most was we were pretty competitive on the boards (-0.9 rebounding margin), which created more opportunities to score.
“I like the pace we got. We want to press more. But we just need to shoot better. We were 325th out of 349 teams in shooting in the nation. You can’t be 325 out of 349 and be anywhere where I want to be.”
BB: Talk to me about the league overall. In your first year in the Big Sky, what were some of your impressions? Did anything surprise you?
Fish: “I enjoyed the league. I thought it was very competitive. I thought there were a bunch of really good, young coaches in the league. I like the guards. I got a feel now of what it takes to win the league. You have to be able to shoot it. You have to have some athleticism. You have to have somebody who gives you points in the paint.
“I have a feel of what it takes to win the league and anybody can say what they want to say but until you go through the first year…it took us a year to figure out what it takes to win the Pac 12. Stanley Johnson (Arizona), Joe Young (Oregon), Delon Wright (Utah), you need a guy like that who is going to be a pro on your wing, ok. On this level, you have to have a guard who’s a borderline going to get invited to an NBA camp, has a chance to make a roster. You have to have one of those guys to be one of the better teams. Sacramento State had great guards. Montana, Jordan Gregory, his toughness, I loved his toughness. Every time he missed it, he wanted the ball again. Bolomboy, he’s a difference maker for Weber. I thought Eastern Washington, their strength at any give moment, they can score 25 points on you in four minutes and that came through perimeter play. I have a feel now of what it takes.
“I feel very comfortable with the guys we are bringing in. It will be a different type of year in terms of coaching in the fact that this team will grow. We are going to have new guys, young guys who will grow as the year goes on and I think our best basketball will be in February and March instead of early because of as many as eight new guys. There will be a learning adjustment there.”
BB: In fact, you guys might be even younger next year in the pure fact you won’t have three seniors. What’s the realistic expectations? Do you put a win total or anything on what kind of jump you want to make?
Fish: “I probably will in the future. But now, let me see. Again, the one thing I was very proud of this team was, with all the obstacles we faced, I thought this team continued to get better throughout the year. We had a governor on us where we could only get so much better but I thought we did get better. We won three games in February.
“This year, with our talent we have, I think we have a chance to continue to grow all the way through. It will be accepting roles, it will be accepting injuries, it will be how things go but the potential to grow is obviously greater.”
BB: You mentioned several of the teams in the league. Sac, very guard-heavy, Eastern and Montana both very balanced. Idaho has good depth and athleticism. NAU, great point guard and some bruisers to back him up and some shooters out front. Those are different blueprints. Is there one that’s easier to replicate or one that you look to or do you want to do something completely unique?
Fish: “We want to press more than the league does. Going back to what I know, what separated Arizona and Utah was Tarczewski and the freshman (Jakob Poeltl), those two bigs separate them. We don’t have that in our league. We have 5-10 to 6-8. That’s our league. There isn’t a 7-2 guy who’s just like ‘Wow, we can’t do anything with that.’
“I do think that getting the ball out of certain guys hands and forcing other guys to handle it is an advantage we can exploit. Shooting, again, we will improve just by increasing our shooting percentage. We can’t hover around…I liked the shots. When I went through the tapes, I liked the shots we got. We just have to make them. That will be the biggest adjustment. I think Marcus got hurt by it more than anybody. I think he had 143 assists but he probably left one a game on the table, so 30 more he could’ve had if guys make shots because he delivered the ball where we wanted it. We just didn’t make the shot.”
BB: Going forward, how hard was this last year on you on a personal level?
Fish: “There was a lot of different emotions going on. One, you are excited about getting your chance. But the second thing was I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better crew to be around to work with. We lacked some things and harped on that way more than I probably should’ve. We still continue to play hard. We still came to practice every day. We still bought into the process. We worked hard all the way up until probably seven minutes to go in that last game against Montana when it finally just slapped us in the face and told us it’s over. They made it an enjoyable year.
“The administration, some of the advancements we made, the locker rooms, things that don’t show up to the fans. We updated the offices. We’ve gotten a lot done that I didn’t know a year ago we could get all done in a year. I enjoyed being around the guys. I thought we got better as the year went along. We just…it was a fun year. For me, it was fun.
“But ultimately, my DNA is, I want to play in the tournament. This is the first time in 11 years I haven’t. That kills me. It’s been a struggle not being somebody that is being talked about right now.”
BB: The demands of a head coach, how are those maybe different than what you’ve experienced in your coaching career and how did you acclimate?
Fish: “As soon as we lost on Saturday, I left on Tuesday and I was in eight states and took eight flights and drove 1,200 miles. I got a lot of thinking time in some places there wasn’t a lot of people at. There are certain areas I want to improve. At the demand on time, I love getting out and seeing Montana, seeing the people and the Bobcat Nation. I love that. That exceeded expectations by a great deal. The spirit for the university exceeded my expectations. It’s amazing.
“But I know they have it in them. I want to drive that crowd to five and 6,000 people. I want to win games. I want people mad at me when we lose. I love when people come up to me and say I love how hard your team played but at the same time as a coach, you want fans mad at you when you lose and happy when you win. Those are the expectations and I want that. We’ve got to strive that way.
“The one thing I’ve learned is as an assistant, you can say something to somebody and it was kind of this and this and as a coach, saying hi to someone or telling them you appreciate what they’ve done for the program as a head coach, that seems to carry more weight and that’s been an adjustment. I like being pretty normal. I don’t think I have a huge ego. My wife may argue that (laughs), but I just like talking to people. Adjusting to that is probably the hardest part.”
BB: The in-game stuff, as far as head coaching persona on the bench, was that something that took a little time to hone?
Fish: “I had an unbelievably good staff. They did great. They kept me informed. I thought we got honed in as the year went along as far as what guys’ roles are. When your players play hard and your staff keeps you informed, it makes your job easier. Standing up the whole time and doing that on the sideline…I’ve been taught by some really good guys I’ve worked for. Sometimes, you end up doing what they’ve done before. I just hope I’m half as good a coach some day as Coach Altman or some of the guys I’ve worked for.”
At the end of the season, Fish elected to cut ties with freshman guard Joey Frenchwood, freshman center Bradley Fisher and junior guard Terrell Brown. Ryan Shannon retired due to concussion issues, leaving MSU with eight open scholarships due to Kavel Bigby-Williams’ non-qualification along with the graduation of three seniors and the cuts.
BB: The roster turnover, looking toward the future, why so many new faces and why did you decide to cut ties with Bradley Fisher, Terrell Brown and Joey Frenchwood?
Fish: “Ultimately, you are the CEO of a company and as the CEO of a company, they hired you to have the vision of building a program that reprents Dr. Cruzado and Peter Fields and Montana State University the correct guy. I thought our guys did. I thought we needed to change our image on campus. We needed to change our visibility on campus and on the community. Our guys bout into that. But ultimately we have to do all that plus win. Sometimes, you have to make the hard decision. That’s part of being…when I researched this getting ready for a job and not knowing what job I would get, the guys that failed to make some decisions are the guys that I always noticed are the ones who aren’t around.
“You always have coaches…I’ve had a lot of people come up and talk to me and spend some time with me when I’ve been out on the road and they always say, ‘Hold people accountable and make sure you make the tough decisions.’ You can’t run from things. You have to face the media, face the music.”
BB: You mentioned the visibility of these guys. What sort of things have you done to increase that?
Fish: “We attended every single football game. We made sure all of our guys made every single one. We went to the volleyball matches, the track meets.
“We have a lot of people in athletics…I think Dale Kennedy runs as good a track program as anybody I’ve been around. He deserves our team showing up for his events because he does a great job. Our football program does a great job. We have a new volleyball coaches so that will be new. If we are going to grow the student body crowd, it’s gotta be because four or five guys are friends with Marcus and they are coming over to see their buddy play. And then all of a sudden five more come because they like Zach and 10 more because they are friends with Danny.
“If you are a jerk to your fellow students, we are going to lack in that area. That can’t happen.”
BB: Last thing for you. What gives you the great thread of optimism that this is something you can rebuild?
Fish: “You know, Colter, it’s funny and I’m 12 months into this and I’m more excited now than I was when I was hired. I wish we could start practicing the day the final four got over.
“You have reservations. How are you going to do this and that? How are the administration and everyone going to react? How are the boosters going to be? All of those things have exceeded everything. If I look back on this year, we’ve built relationships with ex players. I’m very happy with how that is going. I’m very happy with our relationships with ex players and fans and boosters. I think we have grown our student body a little bit. Our attendance continued to rise as the season went on even if it wasn’t deservedly so because we weren’t winning.
“Now we have a chance to make an impact. We were held back by some things. Now we have our players in. Now we have to go develop. We have to get in the lab and develop guys and get them better. I’m more excited than I’ve ever been. I like the league. I have a feel of what the league will do and what we have to do to prepare to win the league. I like the Thursday-Saturday schedules. There’s just a lot of things we can take and learn and build on. I’m really looking forward to it. There are a lot of fun times ahead.”
