BOZEMAN — Brian Fish remembers a day when all the information wasn’t readily available.
Montana State’s fourth-year head coach remembers when, as a player at Marshall, his older brother told him the simplest way to know if you were shooting well is to compare how many points you scored to how many shots you took. If you scored more points than your number of shots from the floor, you were shooting just fine. And if you weren’t shooting well, you certainly knew.
But you didn’t have a computer or a SmartPhone to look up your percentages. You didn’t know you had missed a string of your most recent field goal attempts. You didn’t have Twitter to reinforce the struggles of a season. You didn’t have the information to dwell on a shooting slump to the point where the poor shooting started to manifest with your teammates.
Unfortunately for Fish and the Bobcats, all that information is available today. And Montana State has had to deal with all the noise from the very beginning of the season.
“They all know what they are shooting,” Fish said. “It’s a battle. It’s a daily thing. When I played, you just did what the coach said. That’s just not what happens anymore. Now what happens is there’s things you have to manage and it’s a constant. I sit there and watch and West Virginia, Oregon, Kentucky, they can’t throw one in the ocean. It happens to them too.
“It’s the give up generation but you can’t give up. You have to get people grinding. My job is to teach these guys how to deal with life. Your marriage ain’t always going to be great, your kids aren’t always going to be healthy but you have to keep grinding. This is basketball. So just grind it out, get in the gym and shoot. That’s what we have to do.”
Montana State junior Tyler Hall/ by Brooks Nuanez
One source inside the MSU program estimates as many as 75 different NBA agents have been in contact with the camp of Bobcat star guard Tyler Hall throughout the course of this pressure-packed season. The preseason Big Sky MVP has not shot the ball at nearly the level he did his first two seasons as a Bobcat even if he’s still among the leading scorers in the conference.
A year after nailing 120 3-pointers and shooting at one of the nation’s most efficient clips during a first-team All-Big Sky sophomore season, Hall has hit 90 triples, including 48 3s on 35.8 percent during league play this season. He is averaging 19.2 points per outing in conference play, 18.3 per game overall, on par with his scoring average during his Big Sky Freshman of the Year campaign and down from his 23.1 points per game average overall last season.
His shooting struggles have coincided with a team-wide shooting slump. A team expected to be one of the Big Sky’s best shooting teams is making 34.1 percent of its 3-point tries in league play. The Bobcats’ 7.5 3-pointers per game are about three less triples per outing than the team hit during last year’s 11-7 league campaign. The slump has coincided with struggles; the Bobcats have lost nine of their last 11 games entering Saturday’s game at rival Montana.
“When you have expectations and after an 11-5 start, losses are hard,” Fish said. “I think our defense has gotten tremendously better this year and the guys know that. And we’ve somewhat failed in the ability to make shots.”
“In 27 years, I’ve faced this five or six times when this has happened. This isn’t something that’s strange. You just have to have someone grab the bulls by the horns and say this is stopping today. That’s yet to be seen.”
Montana State head coach Brian Fish coaching guard Devonte Klines (10)/by Brooks Nuanez
The shooting slumps have permeated the entire roster individually. A year after shooting 46 percent from beyond the arc, reigning Big Sky Freshman of the Year Harald Frey is shooting 35.4 percent from beyond the arc. After MSU’s two All-Big Sky guards, the 3-point shooting struggles take a dive. Junior forward Keljin Blevins has made just six of his 21 attempts from beyond the arc. Senior Joe Mvuezolo Jr. is shooting 25 percent from the arc and has made just eight triples in league play. Devonte Klines is shooting 27.8 percent from deep and has made just five 3-pointers in conference games. Senior Zach Green has made just one 3-pointer against Big Sky competition.
“Going through the downs we’ve had has been pretty rough but I’m just trying to get ready to go to Reno and do whatever I can for my team for us to be successful,” Green said. “Every team wants to be playing their best basketball when they get to the tournament. We were playing our best basketball early in the season but that’s over with so you have to be able to move forward.
“This season has not met expectations. I expected us to be one of the best teams in our conference but things didn’t work out that way. But I still have tons of hope for our team and I’m ready to make a statement in Reno.”
Montana State, a team expected to contend for the Big Sky title entering the season, has struggled mightily after a 4-0 start in the Big Sky. MSU has lost nine of its last 11 games entering Saturday’s showdown with the rival in Missoula, a skid that started with a 67-52 loss to the league-leading Griz in Bozeman
“It’s frustrating but we have to change it,” Hall said following MSU’s 84-79 loss at Eastern Washington last weekend. “We are still the team we thought we were but we are in a slump and we have to get a win under our belts and keep the momentum going.
“It’s a rivalry game, a big game. I mean, it’s the Cat-Griz game. That’s all you need to say. It’s an emotional game. It’s just another game at the end of the day but we have to lock in and try to focus on getting a win because that would be big for us.”
Montana State forward Keljin Blevins (2)/by Brooks Nuanez
MSU trailed by one at halftime in a 19-point loss to Sac State that started the spiral. The Bobcats were tied at halftime with the rival Griz before losing by 15 on their home court. MSU blew a four-point halftime lead in a two-point loss to last-place Northern Arizona, let a four-point halftime deficit turn into a 25-point loss at Northern Colorado, blew a four-point halftime lead in a three-point home loss to Portland State and lost by 10 at Idaho last week despite leading with 6:50 left in Moscow. At EWU, the Bobcats and the Eagles were tied with 2:19 left before fading down the stretch.
“I think we just have to break out of the mindset of hanging in with teams and be ready to win at the end to actually converting and actually be able to take advantage and win games,” Green said. “We are getting close but we are not taking advantage at the end of games and winning.”
“I think we have to be able to stay composed and it’s always a possession game at half, so we are there. Once we get to the second half, we start to lose who we are offensively and defensively. We have to be able to lock in and fight through a long game.”
Montana enters the rivalry game having one 14 its last 15 match-ups against MSU. The Bobcats beat the Grizzlies in Bozeman last season to snap a 13-game skid to their rivals. The Bobcats are 6-9 in league play but are fighting for seeding in a jammed up Big Sky race that has all 12 teams exactly one game apart from the team in front and behind it in the standings.
“We want it so bad,” MSU senior Konner Frey said after the EWU loss. “We want every game bad but we especially want that one bad. These games mean more and more to us so we can prove we can make that jump to actually pulling them out. Every game is extremely critical for us.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez and attributed. All Rights Reserved.
