grizzlyjournal said:
The West Coast Conf. website made the game stream available on demand. By my view, the game really hung on a couple of missed open looks and two missed free throws by Moody. In that light, a solid outing by the Griz. Of significance to me was the play of Laolu Oke and Jaxon Nap. Oke's D was very solid and -- though he doesn't hedge the high screens as well as Mack -- his game is improving markedly. Nap really gave the Griz an offensive boost in the second half. His vision and very accurate passes into the key to both Bannan Dischon led to one assist and at least 4 conversions. I also thought Lonnell Martin had a very solid floor game, particularly on defense. Lastly, Whitney just gets more accomplished with each game. He's playing with pace and control and really forced the Zag defense to dt him when he got into the paint.
Also, as mentioned in this thread, the Big Sky is shaping up to be a very balanced league this season. Its conference ranking has gone from 25-27th up to as high as 19th (Sagarin). Literally every Big Sky team has had either a win or a solid outing over the past week vs. teams ranked in or near the top 100. In the Haslametics ratings both the Griz and Weber have surged up 30+ positions. Should be fun.
grizzlyjournal said:
The West Coast Conf. website made the game stream available on demand. By my view, the game really hung on a couple of missed open looks and two missed free throws by Moody. In that light, a solid outing by the Griz. Of significance to me was the play of Laolu Oke and Jaxon Nap. Oke's D was very solid and -- though he doesn't hedge the high screens as well as Mack -- his game is improving markedly. Nap really gave the Griz an offensive boost in the second half. His vision and very accurate passes into the key to both Bannan Dischon led to one assist and at least 4 conversions. I also thought Lonnell Martin had a very solid floor game, particularly on defense. Lastly, Whitney just gets more accomplished with each game. He's playing with pace and control and really forced the Zag defense to dt him when he got into the paint.
Also, as mentioned in this thread, the Big Sky is shaping up to be a very balanced league this season. Its conference ranking has gone from 25-27th up to as high as 19th (Sagarin). Literally every Big Sky team has had either a win or a solid outing over the past week vs. teams ranked in or near the top 100. In the Haslametics ratings both the Griz and Weber have surged up 30+ positions. Should be fun.
Good write up. I agree it appears the Griz have turned the corner but still a lot of unfinished business to attend too.
To those who continually complain about the Griz scoring droughts they need to realize every team goes through them. The Zags did not score from the field for almost 6 minutes in our game so it’s not just the grizzlies. Sometimes it’s just the way the ball bounces. Change of personnel, fatigue, complacency, other team gets hot. Multiple factors, like I said just the way the ball bounces at times.
Our first two conference games are at home against E Washington and Idaho. Eastern is struggling this year but they can get hot. The Vandals are supposedly much improved this year so we’ll see. Nothing less than a 2/0 start would be acceptable.
Attendance has been on the decline the past couple of years which is unfortunate. I know winning always helps but hometown crowds goes a long ways towards home court victories.
