Brutal early-season road trips are becoming the norm for the Bobcats in Brian Fish’s second year at the helm.
This time around, the Montana State men’s basketball team hopes to find a silver lining beyond the challenges that await on the hardwood.
“This time, there’s no academics,” Fish, MSU’s second-year head coach, said last week. “Last year when we were on a 10-day road trip, we had study halls and we were mailing papers back, taking tests. This time, there is no school. We will do some things as a team. We have two-day breaks between each game. I think it will help us in the end.”
“We will all be hanging out, all in the same rooms and it will be nice to not have to worry about school,” added MSU senior power forward Danny Robison. “We get to focus on basketball and doing whatever we can to get better as a team and come together as a group.”
Last season, Montana State went on a 10-day road strip that included games at Pauley Pavilion to take on UCLA and at Rupp Arena to take on top-ranked Kentucky. The Bobcats lost all four November contests before playing its first home game of Fish’s first season as head coach.
The Bobcats began this winter’s 10-day road trip with a 91-83 win at San Jose State on Sunday to earn a sweep of the Spartans for the season. MSU beat SJSU 81-69 in Bozeman earlier this season. MSU’s third road win of the season gives the Bobcats as many victories away from Bozeman as the team experienced all last winter during a 7-23 campaign.
The rest of the road trip includes the second half of a home-and-home with North Dakota State on Wednesday night in Fargo; a matchup with Buffalo to make up for a game that was cancelled a season ago on Saturday afternoon; and a game against Syracuse at the Carrier Dome on December 22.
“These next four games will be the toughest four games on our schedule,” Robison said. “We have to find a way to get some wins.”
Last season, North Dakota State earned its second straight bid to the NCAA Tournament by claiming its second straight Summit League title. The Bison earned the No. 12 seed and upset Oklahoma in the first round of the Big Dance two years ago. The Bison are 6-3 this season. NDSU put all five starters in double figures scoring and shot 50 percent as a team in a 72-51 rout of MSU in Bozeman last season.
“I’m still bitter about the North Dakota State game we had here at home last year,’ Robison said. “They whooped up on us. I know they have a home court winning streak there. That would be nice to break.”
NDSU has won 29 straight games at home.
Buffalo was also an NCAA Tournament team a year ago. The Bulls earned a 12-seed and fell narrowly to West Virginia in the Round of 64. Following the season, Buffalo head coach Bobby Hurley, a former standout point guard at Duke, took the head coaching job at Arizona State. In Nate Oats’ first season, Buffalo is 4-5. MSU was supposed to play at Buffalo last year during the non-conference but the game was cancelled after the Northeastern city was covered with more than four feet of snow over a 24-hour period
The road swing concludes with a game at one of college basketball’s most hallowed venues. The Bobcats play at the Carrier Dome, a venue that holds nearly 36,000 for basketball games. Syracuse is in the midst of 43 consecutive winning seasons, an NCAA record. The Orange have qualified for nine NCAA Tournament Elite Eights, five Final Fours and have won the Big Dance once: in 2003.
The Bobcats have made noticeable strides in Fish’s second season at the helm. The Bobcats have five wins, just two shy of the total from a season ago. MSU is averaging 80.4 points per game, just one-tenth of a point from the best average in the Big Sky Conference thus far. MSU is doing it with strong guard play and sweet shooting from beyond the arc. The Bobcats lead all Big Sky teams by shooting 40 percent from beyond the 3-point line thus far.
MSU head coach Brian Fish addresses the ‘Gold team’ in practice. Clockwise from Fish:Tyler Hall, Zach Green, Shy Blake, Danny Robison, Marcus Colbert
Senior point guard Marcus Colbert has been a go-to threat in crunch time. He is averaging 18.4 points per game and has dominated during the second half of a couple of victories. He is also averaging 4.7 assists per game, third among Big Sky players.
On the wing, true freshman Tyler Hall has lived up to the hype thus far. Against SJSU, he drilled five of six free throws down the stretch to put the sweep on ice. The Rock Island, Illinois product is averaging 17.1 points per game, the seventh-best among Big Sky players. He is shooting 50 percent from the floor, 87.5 percent from the stripe and 44.2 percent from beyond the arc.
Robison chips in 9.0 points and 4.9 rebounds per game, amounting to Montana State’s only inside presence so far. Fish brought in eight new players during the off-season, including junior college transfers Shy Blake, Tyson Kanseyo and Sarp Gobeloglu to bolster the inside presence lacking on last season’s squad. The results have been lackluster thus far.
Gobeloglu is averaging 8.2 points per game off the bench but has done it mostly with perimeter shooting — his 16 3-pointers made trail only Hall and Colbert. The 6-foot-11 native of Turkey is averaging 3.4 rebounds in 20 minutes per game. Blake is averaging 2.8 points and 1.3 rebounds in 9.7 minutes per game. Kanseyo is averaging 1.2 points and 2.4 rebounds in 10 minutes per game and has not played in four games.
“We have to get to work and get some confidence,” Fish said. “We are not getting the ball moved early enough. We are scoring too early in the shot clock, which is putting us on defense too much which is not getting the ball in everybody’s hands. We have to do a better job, in the first half especially, of getting everybody’s hands on the ball.”
The improvement in scoring has been stark for a Montana State team that averaged 63.9 points per game in Fish’s first season. The Bobcats were the only team in the league that shot less than 40 percent last season. The Bobcats were able to hang in games thanks to a defense that allowed 71 points per game.
“Last year, we had the opposite problem,” Robison said. “We have to continue to focus on our defense. The way the game is being called this year, a lot more people are getting to the free throw line. That’s something we struggle with. Almost every team gets in the bonus the first and second half. We have to find a way to play defense without fouling.”
The Bobcats return from the road stretch in time for Christmas only to leave again for the beginning of conference play. MSU plays at Southern Utah on New Year’s Eve and at Northern Arizona two days later.
“Stay healthy, get some guys some playing time and if we could get one or two road wins on this, it would be a huge step in the right direction,” Fish said of the road grind. “We are playing teams that were all probably would be picked in the top one or two in the Big Sky if we played them. We are going to go against teams that are certainly ready and active and it will throw a stiff challenge at us.”
