Fish era over in Bozeman by Danny Waldo
After five lackluster seasons, the Brian Fish era is officially over in Bozeman after Montana State Athletic Director Leon Costello chose not to renew the former coach’s contract which was set to expire on June 30th.
Fish, a career assistant coach, came to the Bobcats via the University of Oregon in his first head coaching stint. Fish did upgrade the talent pool on the Bobcat roster, most notably signing Tyler Hall who would go on to become the all-time leading scorer in Big Sky Conference history, but the improved talent never equated to improved performance on the court. In his five seasons, the best record Fish could produce was 16-16 (11-7 Big Sky) in 2016-17, and in that time, Montana State won just one conference tournament game, a 75-71 victory over Idaho this season.
Following their season-ending loss to Eastern Washington in the conference quarterfinals, Fish lobbied to stay in Bozeman, stating “I want to be here, I love coaching it, I love where the program’s at. We got a tournament win, and we hadn’t done that in 10 years,” but Costello opted to go in a different direction.
“After a thorough review of the men’s basketball program, today I met with Brian and informed him of my decision not to renew his contract; I also thanked Brian for his years of service to Montana State University,” Costello said.
Costello stated a nationwide search would begin immediately to find Fish’s successor, and Montana State recently announced they have formed a seven-person search committee to identify the 23rd head coach in Montana State history. One member of the committee is senior-to-be Harald Frey who will be counted on heavily to make up for the departure of Tyler Hall, and will be the catalyst to MSU’s success in the new head coach’s first season.
The committee hopes to have a new head coach named in the coming weeks. The current assistant coaches all remain under contract, but it will be up to the new head coach to decide if any of them are to be retained for the 2019-2020 season.
Danny Waldo is a local freelance writer who loves to highlight the athletic feats of local athletes regardless of age or sport.
