Bobcats Collapse and Tumble at Big Sky Championships
By Danny Waldo
Mercifully, it’s over.
After watching the MSU men’s basketball team find a variety ways in which to lose a basketball game this season, the year came to an ugly ending in the first round of the Big Sky Conference tournament in Reno, NV on March 6th after falling to the University of North Dakota.
And true to form, the ‘Cats lost this one in epic fashion too after blowing a 19-point second half lead and losing on an offensive putback with 6 seconds remaining, sealing MSU’s fate, 76-74.
“It really came down to when you get a 19-point lead, we just had to make stops,” Fish said. “We didn’t need to score another basket.
But that stop never came.
Now, Bobcat fans have another offseason to reflect on what could have been, as MSU continues its decades long fade into mediocrity in men’s basketball after the season began with such high hopes.
MSU entered the season as a preseason No. 4 pick before losing 12 of their last 14 games, including seven straight.
“The one thing that I would say is it’s a 31-, 32-game season,” said head coach Brian Fish, who returned all five starters. “You’re going to have spurts where it goes well and you’re going to have spurts where it doesn’t go well. Looking back on it, it will take a couple weeks here to think about it and stuff. Looking back at it, it wasn’t a gouge, but paper cuts that kind of got us. But they kept fighting.”
“I just struggle that I couldn’t find a way to get them wins and to give them that juice because I really thought we were just one good bounce away from us going on a roll,” Fish said. “They came in with high expectations and we didn’t reach them. That will take a couple weeks to get out of our system, but we have to go back to work and get going better.
