I have to agree with you. Beating a bad Idaho team twice and a bad Fullerton team twice sort of padded the numbers for UM this year, but financially it cannot be helped. It would be a good thing for the Griz to pay in preseason tourneys in the East and South or invite the Duquesnes, La Salles', Kent States, etc to Missoula. UM has the coach to draw national attention and recruits and when it comes together, as it will, maybe the students can revive the moribund atmosphere we see at Dahlberg...Booing a ref is not a good thing....finding, playing and winning over good competition with a different style of play is the challenge most college level basketball players, men and woman, really want...the game should be fun. Not sure the game last night was fun for our guys....they looked a little stunned but the more it went on, the better they looked...This wasn't a bad loss....it was a learning experience that will pay off next year....GrizDDS said:GrizLA said:Neither UCLA or Oregon State is as good as some think...I see the Bruins regularly...a very down year for all the West, and San Diego is going to be the Western team to beat...it happens...UCLA expected to win when they met UM, but once the Griz saw they could actually score and stop UCLA they began to believe they could win and the opposite was true for the Bruins....Don't forget, UM was not the only "mid major" that beat them....OSU simply sucked....the Griz did ok and next year might be a better year yet, if Tinks can change his formula of a half court game. UM seems to have the players who can pick up the tempo...but a 3 pt shooter is a must....I have given up on Selvig being more than a fair forward who is better at defense than anything else....tourist said:Thank you, Growler. I think you explained to me what I wanted to know about tonights game. Good job. What I'd like to know is how a team that started so fine, UCLA & OSU, ended up like this? Anyone? I' m just looking for good objective observations. I have no axe to grind. Thanks.
Oregon State, Colorado State, Boise State . . . most the teams that fans get most excited about us playing aren't that good. It's mostly a name recognition thing. Duquesne might be the best team we played all year. Their conference is rated just behind the Pac-10, and they were about 15-20 points away from 7 more wins this yr and an at large bid. Lost some tough close ones. But because most casual fans haven't heard of them it looks like a "bad" loss.
If the AD wants to drum up Griz hoops fan support, he might want to try to schedule all the weak big name teams he can.