i believe we're on the brink of a big revival of basketball in the big sky conference, thanks to the reversal of fortunes of two programs that were dormant for a long time, weber and montana state, and another that never really has amounted to much, portland state. years down the road we'll be remembering when coaches tinkle, huse, rahe and bone paced the hardwoods of the big sky before moving on to bigger programs. all are recruiting extremely well right now, re-stoking several key rivalries, and i think we should all be happy to see it. the better the conference ranking, the higher the ncaa seed, and this is critical because basketball is the only big sky sport with even the prospect of any money at the end of the rainbow.
but there's the rub. once the conference becomes successful, it'll still suffer the same fate the lady griz did last year--win your tournament or else. i never see this conference getting more than one bid, which means that some damned good teams are never going to make it to the big dance, and the conference is going to lose out on those big-dance bucks.
i've said it before and i'll repeat it here: when the time comes to move up, it'll be basketball--both men's and women's--that drives the decision, not football.
but there's the rub. once the conference becomes successful, it'll still suffer the same fate the lady griz did last year--win your tournament or else. i never see this conference getting more than one bid, which means that some damned good teams are never going to make it to the big dance, and the conference is going to lose out on those big-dance bucks.
i've said it before and i'll repeat it here: when the time comes to move up, it'll be basketball--both men's and women's--that drives the decision, not football.
