Griz Basketball Observations........

[MontanaRaised]

I attended the UM/WSU basketball game on Saturday. I thought I'd throw in my thoughts.

Negative:
The crowd wasn't into the game at all. When State was at the free throw line, no one went crazy behind the basket. It was like a library in there. The students and their lack of enthusiasm was very disappointing. THey just stood around with their hands in their pockets.

The flag. Not everyone can see it. I've never been to a game where the flag isn't visable to everyone. If you sit on on the upper half of the bench side you have no view of it.

The parking sucks. They should open up more reserved parking for general parking.

Why don't they have a souvenir stand like at the football games?

Positive:
Great team, lots of hustle and very exciting (even though they didn't play very well this night).

The new scoreboard is great!

The cheer squad and dancing teams are fantastic!

And finally, why is the band smaller than most high school bands? They were good but were a bunch of them sick with the flu?

 

[Grizbeer]

The parking is normally fine, just one pinhead screwed everything up this game (see attendance post). I liked the scoreboard, it was great to see TOL, team fouls, and points and fouls by player. I'm not sure about the video screen since you can't actually see it from south upper level (o.k. you can see the top 1/3 and bottom 1/3). Is it really not possible to raise the curtain or take it down? We were row 10 in the south end - I wonder how far down you have to go to actually see the replay screen?

The crowd was quiet because the Griz played like CRAP - that was sad. I don't mean to panic, but in my mind that was their 3rd bad game in the last 4 outings - they played well against Auburn, but they really look lethargic to me. It is the same problem we had last year - if we can't shoot 3's we don't have a chance - and right now we aren't shooting anything. Sorry , getting off-topic here. Kennedy's Crazies did start to get something going for a while wiht stomping and jumping on their stands, but then the Griz self-destructed and WSU went on a 6-0 run and it took the fans out again.

 

[MontanaRaised]

I was wondering if school was out and the college kids weren't all there. Yeah, what was with missing all the 3's?

I forgot about the Video screen. I too saw 1/3 of the top, 1/3 of the bottom. Maybe they can put another one on the other side.

I'm glad to be able to go up to the ticket office and buy a ticket, but I wish it were more like the football games.

 

[Grizbeer]

That actually seemed like one of the better student turnouts, which is a pretty sad statement.

 

[TrueGriz]

In short:

Griz:
Griz started out bad, which is why I believe they lost. Very flat footed and Lethargic as GrizBeer put it. At least the first 13 minutes of the game. After that time, Griz kept it close with what I considered good defense.

Scoreboard:
Nice scoreboard. Improvement could be that they include the number of the player instead of just the names. Having just names is fine if the name of the player is on the players jersey.

Video:
Waste of money.

Flag:
I think they have the flag where they put it due to the video screen. Another reason the video screen is a waste of money.

Parking:
At this time, to many parking spaces reserved. Need to open up more for non-reserved parking. If/When Basketball games ever become popular, this could change.

 

[ohyeah]

I think the players have seemed lethargic due to their tough schedule, they've been traveling alot, playing tough teams, and have finals to study for. And the flu has been going around. Also kind of hard to be excited all the time when you're never sure if you're going to start or play. Has anyone else noticed the many different combinations Kennedy has tried out. Seems like it would be hard to develop team chemistry when you're never playing with the same guys.
I agree the scoreboard needs players numbers. Video screen was o.k., truthfully I didn't look at it that often.
Agree they need to open up more parking for general parking.
Crowd has been unenthused for the past few years. It seems like people go to the games to just sit back and watch and relax instead of actually put any effort into cheering.
Officiating has been terrible, at home and away games. It seems like refs always call bad games for MT.

 

[grizgirl317]

We only had really good student turn out at 2 games last year. I don't know why the students don't go to the games. I'm a student and I'm at every game I can be, yelling my head off (well unless I'm photographing...then I can't yell). I doubt student turnout will be good tonight (finals week) but it should pick up during Big Sky play.

The reason our band seems small is that its a pep band not a full band. It doesn't have all the instruments a full band would have, just saxophones, brass and percussion.