Over the last calendar year, Sacramento State has provided two distinct memories for the Bobcats, one worth remembering and the other tough to forget.
Montana State earned a hard-fought 79-76 win at The Nest on February 6 of last season. The win served as Montana State’s last road win. MSU has lost 10 straight games on opponents’ courts since that victory.
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“I remember we played really hard and with a lot of energy,” said Montana State guard Tyler Hall, who scored 25 points in that victory en rout to Big Sky Conference Freshman of the Year honors. “I know it’s a smaller gym (capacity of 1,012, attendance of 929 last season) and it got pretty loud. We just have to bring that same energy we brought last year and the same energy we brought last game (a 68-53 win over Northern Colorado in Bozeman last Saturday).”
The losing streak is at 11 games away from Bozeman if MSU’s 79-75 loss to Sacramento State in the first round of the Big Sky Conference tournament is included. The Bobcats earned the No. 7 seed in the Big Sky Tournament in Reno with a 9-9 conference mark. The Hornets were the 10th seed after a 6-12 Big Sky finish. Yet the Hornets sprung the upset, by holding MSU to 6-of-28 shooting from beyond the arc as the starting lineup including Hall, Marcus Colbert, Quinton Everett and Zach Green combined to make just two of 20 3—point attempts.
“For some of us, it plays a factor,” Hall said of the season-ending loss that saw him score 17 points in 37 minutes. “I’m reminded of it. To go get revenge, especially there, would be sweet.”
Montana State gets a chance for revenge on Thursday. The Bobcats play at the Hornets Nest looking for their first road win in eight outings away from Brick Breeden Fieldhouse this season.
“It’s been going better and better,” MSU head coach Fish said of his team’s road travails. MSU enters weekend play 7-12 overall, 2-4 in the Big Sky and 0-7 on the road. “You lose by two (83-81 in overtime) at Idaho and you play pretty well there. At times, we played pretty well against Eastern Washington (82-64 loss). We will need to play pretty well on Saturday night. But there’s no replacing the experience.”
In Fish’s third year, MSU still does not have much of a veteran presence. Sixth man Quinton Everett is the team’s only senior. Zach Green is the team’s only junior starter. Hall, power forward Sam Neumann and guard Devonte Klines, a junior college transfer, are all sophomores in MSU’s starting lineup. Starting point guard Harald Frey is a freshman.
“My guys showed me something the other day that we are the 300th team (out of 345 in Division I) youngest team in the country,” Fish said. “There’s a lot of teams older. We are moving the needle in the right direction but we need a little luck to go our way so we can get a win on the road.”
Frey, Klines, junior reserve swing man Joe Mvuezolo Jr., junior reserve center Benson Osayande, freshman reserve post Devin Kirby and redshirt freshman reserve guard Mandrell Worthy have never experienced a road win at Montana State. Hall, Neumann and Everett experienced four road wins last year but none in nearly a calendar year.
Green, the lone player on the roster who has been at MSU for all three of Fish’s seasons at the helm, has experienced six road victories in his Bobcat career. The Bobcats swept at Northern Colorado and North Dakota in Fish’s first season. MSU was 4-12 away from the Brick last season, including 2-7 in league play. Fish is 4-16 in Big Sky road games in his career.
“On the road, you have to understand it’s a 40-minute game and a lot of times at home, the crowd will get you through some rough spots but when you go on the road, there’s only 20 of you there,” Fish said. “You have to fight through it. A lot of it falls on guards, getting good shots, getting good possessions, staying out of situations where you give up layups without getting to play defense.”
Sac State understands full well the struggles provided by the road for Big Sky teams. The Hornets played just one true home game during their first seven games and just three home games during 11 non-conference contests. Sac won all three of its pre-conference home games and lost all eight of its games away from California’s capital city.
The challenges of travel have not ceased with the opening of Big Sky play in the New Year. Sac began league with two straight home losses to Northern Colorado and North Dakota. The Hornets played at Portland State in their lone game the second weekend of January. After an 83-76 loss, Sac State got stuck in the City of Roses because of the Pineapple Express weather system that draped the city in snow.
The Hornets sat on a plane for hours before de-boarding and getting on a bus. The 12-hour trip did not deliver the team back to Sacramento until 3 a.m. on Monday, January 9. The Hornets boarded a commercial flight at 4:30 a.m. for Southern Utah two days later. After posting an 88-83 victory over the Thunderbirds, the Hornets jumped on a bus to head to Flagstaff in preparation for a 12:30 p.m. tip Saturday against Northern Arizona.
“We had a horrific nine or 10 days but I have to tell you, everybody in the world would’ve said, ’12 hour bus ride, tough turn around, get home 3 a.m. on Monday, gotta leave at 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday and then you have to ride a bus for five hours in between after Southern Utah to Northern Arizona, get in at 3 a.m. on Friday, play at noon on Saturday.’ There’s no way you would think it wouldn’t affect your group but it really didn’t,” Sac State head coach Brian Katz said. “We were fresh. I couldn’t believe it, honestly.”
“It’s ironic with the cities we have in the Big Sky that the only two cities that were shut down are Sacramento and Portland simply because they are not equip for that kind of weather (laughs).”
Sac State managed to earn the road sweep with a 74-62 win at Walkup Skydome over NAU to move to 2-3 in league play with Montana State and Montana coming to Sacramento this weekend.
“I’ve seen this coming over time,” Katz said. “We had a pretty rough preseason schedule. It kind of beat us down. We slowly but surely gained our confidence back and we played like a pretty confident team this last weekend. I hope it continues.”
While Montana State plays just one true post player — the 6-foot-9 Osayande — in its rotation and employs a lineup that features three and sometimes four guards, Sacramento State is arguably the biggest team in the league.
Senior 6-11 center Eric Stuteville is one of the most skilled centers in the league and is averaging 13.6 points and 9.2 rebounds per game in league play. Senior power forward Nick Hornsby, a 6-7, 235-pound bruiser, earned Big Sky Player of the Week honors last week by averaging 22.5 points and 12.5 rebounds in the road sweep. Long, lanky small forward Justin Strings, a unique 6-7 swingman with soft touch (15.6 points per game), provides one of the most challenging matchups in the league with his ability to score through and pass out of double teams.
The Hornets are shooting 48 percent from the floor as a team through five league games. Sac ranks third in the league by allowing Big Sky opponents to shoot 42.6 percent. Sac also lead the league in blocks during league play, averaging 6.8 as Stuteville is swatting 2.6 per Big Sky game himself. Hornsby (9.2 rebounds per game) and Stuteville (7.2) are both in the top 10 in the league in rebounding.
“We have to rebound, we have to box out, we have to hit people,” Hall said. “We can’t let them establish the ball inside early. We have to prove we are going to fight back.
“It’s just another travel day but we have to go get some road wins. That’s the biggest thing – I don’t think we have won on the road yet so we have to go get some. It’s a big weekend for us.”
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Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
