NAU Two

[oldrunner]

Picked fourth at the beginning of the season, big win over ISU last night, we've kicked their butts in Flagstaff for the last 7 years, and we haven't put a complete game together for quite a while. I expect a fight out of the Jacks. We will need to play well to win this one.

We control our own destiny, so does Montana. For that matter, so does everyone in the BSC.

I don't have a prediction for the final score, just that it's going to be a fight to the end.

 

[WILDCAT]

NAU shot well against ISU, we will have to keep them off their rhythm so they don't get hot against us. NAU is young but athletic. Should be an entertaining game

 

[Tomcat]

It would be nice if the refs stayed out of it,here's hoping.

 

[oldrunner]

In the first game, we had a hard time guarding their big man. He kept backing us down and we kept letting him do it. I'm hoping that we have an answer for that this game. I think that our guards match up well with them.
This might be a good game to mix a little zone into the man D. :clap:

 

[n.ogdencat]

NAU? I don't know what to think of them. I think they are the most dangerous "bad" team in the conference. They are well coached and starting to really come together. They still have WTF games but proved how competitive they can be on their home court on Thursday. Yanku and Kaluna are the foundation for the Jacks and everything starts with them, but others are starting to show their worth. I'd love nothing more than to see a zone at some point today. If nothing more than to cause fits for the teams we haven't seen yet. They will be forced to prepare for another defensive dimension not just Randy's man to man.

Just a thought for the future, I agree with others that Weber needs to be in the market for a JC/Transfer (can play immediately) big. I feel the Cats would be okay with what they have, but there will be a lot of growing pains. Braxton, Hill, and Dallas would make up the rotation with Kiko and the newb being the other two available. I don't know what to think of Dallas right now. He has a lot of potential. We need another talented big though, no matter. Kiko wasn't cutting it; hence Williams shirt gets pulled. I don't know...there are a lot of quality bigs available.

We argue about Cannon or John...who is better and should start? I think that is a great position to be in. They are both true freshman playing substantial mins and contributing. Personally, I feel we are pretty lucky to have them.

 

[oldrunner]

Garside had a good piece on it in the paper today. To win this game we will need to get some of our defensive swagger back, and much of that will be dictated by the officiating crew. Let's face it, the refs can take a team out of their game and it isn't even that hard for them to do. Hence, the game fixing scandals of the past. That is one of the reasons I have always wanted officiating to be out of the hands of the conference commissioners and into some sort of a National governing body who could police that sort of thing. It would be great to have better consistency across the country. :wall:

I would be surprised if we were recruiting any JC kids for next year, unless someone really good came along. I could see us taking a prep school kid or a transfer. There is still a couple of months to make that choice. :twocents:

 

[n.ogdencat]

Garside had a good piece on it in the paper today. To win this game we will need to get some of our defensive swagger back, and much of that will be dictated by the officiating crew. Let's face it, the refs can take a team out of their game and it isn't even that hard for them to do. Hence, the game fixing scandals of the past. That is one of the reasons I have always wanted officiating to be out of the hands of the conference commissioners and into some sort of a National governing body who could police that sort of thing. It would be great to have better consistency across the country. :wall:

I would be surprised if we were recruiting any JC kids for next year, unless someone really good came along. I could see us taking a prep school kid or a transfer. There is still a couple of months to make that choice. :twocents:

Defense wins championships. Lots of defensive issues happening with the team right now. Like they are losing their legs a bit. Hope the get some energy and re establish some dominance.

I'd be fine with a prep or transfer. Like we've discussed in the past, JC aren't as deep as they once were. I still think there are some diamonds in the rough out there but that a prep or transfer would be the better option. I thoroughly agree with a Reffing consortium or Reffing being controlled exclusively by the NCAA. Hate how a ref can officiate a game on Wednesday in the MW and be good then call a terrible game in the Sky. Tells us one thing...the Sky has an idiot monitoring officiating.

 

[Tomcat]

Well we will have a pretty talented guard line next year and three pretty good size bigs in the middle to compliment them,but I believe also that we have an ace in the whole with williams playing small forward.Once he learns to play a little better D and with his athletic ability let's face it with him being a freshman with his slashing ability this kids got potential to be something special for us.

 

[n.ogdencat]

Well...we are getting a chance to see what next year will be like. I really hope Joel is going to be okay. We desperately need him to finish the year strong.

 

[flylikeasparrow]

After the first half of this game, the flow is better than Thursday (being the refs are letting them play). We do need a big that will give us the production to replace Bolomboy. I hope they can keep up and play at a high level to finish the game.

 

[Tomcat]

That's a continuation on git tens dunk if not its a breakaway fowl.Was there a turn on button for the refs it was right there

 

[WILDCAT]

Refs were doing just fine UNTIL that very controversial call on Yanku, should have been a continuation or at least a breakaway foul. Weber could have been up by as many as 15 points, Gittens picked his dribble up and was in the act of shooting yet No continuation??? And then Yanku runs Baker over when Weber was inbounding the ball and there is no call, Why did it seem like the refs were trying to make that game more interesting than it should have been? Yes that ball went out on Baker there at the end, but he only lost it because he had a LUMBERJACK PULLING HIS LEFT ARM AWAY. COME ON BIG SKY REFS, PULL YOUR HEADS OUT.

BIG SKY REFS SUCK, clap clap clapclapclap, BIG SKY REFS SUCK, clap clap clapclapclap. Everybody now!!!

Hopefully it's not serious with Bolomboy, MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR kudos to Kyndel Hill for stepping in and filling that void tonight, plus Senglin was huge tonight, it's good to see others step up when they are needed.

 

[Kiltman]

Glad we hung on for a win. But good Hell, those refs think it's prison and keep fucking us in the ass!

 

[WILDCAT]

We as Weber State fans after having to put up with that Big Sky reffing crapfest that we had to sit, watch and stress over, deserve nothing less than a Bobcat win in Missoula.

 

[STGWildcat]

Refs were doing just fine UNTIL that very controversial call on Yanku, should have been a continuation or at least a breakaway foul. Weber could have been up by as many as 15 points, Gittens picked his dribble up and was in the act of shooting yet No continuation??? And then Yanku runs Baker over when Weber was inbounding the ball and there is no call, Why did it seem like the refs were trying to make that game more interesting than it should have been? Yes that ball went out on Baker there at the end, but he only lost it because he had a LUMBERJACK PULLING HIS LEFT ARM AWAY. COME ON BIG SKY REFS, PULL YOUR HEADS OUT.

BIG SKY REFS SUCK, clap clap clapclapclap, BIG SKY REFS SUCK, clap clap clapclapclap. Everybody now!!!

Hopefully it's not serious with Bolomboy, MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR kudos to Kyndel Hill for stepping in and filling that void tonight, plus Senglin was huge tonight, it's good to see others step up when they are needed.

Gittens dunk would've counted in the NBA, but continuation rules are a lot less favorable in college; nonetheless, if there's a breakaway call in college like there is in the NBA, Gittens should've gotten two shots and possession back to Weber.

I was pretty irate about Baker getting run over as well. That definitely should've been a foul on NAU.

The refs were horrible, and Weber State's ball handling was about as bad. That's a skill that any point guard in division I basketball should be able to acquire. We need someone on the coaching staff who cares about ball handling as much as Phil Beckner did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oi2Ps7649M

Kyndahl was impressive for a good stretch of the game and gave Weber some cushion for that disaster at the end (refs and ball handling), but he disappeared at the end of the game (offensively). He was stuck on 18 points for awhile and ended up with 19.

But a win is a win, and the most important thing right now is the health of Bolomboy, because even if Weber were to win the Big Sky tournament without him, the first round in the NCAA tournament would not be a pretty sight.

 

[oldrunner]

For most of the night, the officiating was OK. Sure, they called a lot of fouls that were not fouls, when shown on the replay, but they were consistent on both ends of the floor. They sucked in the last four minutes, when things got a little helter skelter with NAU's press. That call on the breakaway was bogus. He had gathered before he was fouled. I believe the definition of shooting is from the gather on. The refs blew that one. It really won't matter, because nobody in BSC administration knows the rules anyway. :wall:

As far as getting a look at what next year might be like, we probably did. It won't quite be the same but we will get the job done in the front court by committee. With another summer's training under their belts, I think that Hill, Braxton, Dallas, Stavrev, and who ever we bring in, will get the job done. I am also encouraged by the experience that our freshmen guards have acquired this year. With summer training, I think that they will also be able to clean up some of the mistakes they have made this year. :thumb: :thumb:

If you look around the league, the best bigs are all seniors this year. Our bigs will be able to hang with anybody in the BSC. :rockon:

 

[oldrunner]

I spent Saturday night watching parts of the other BSC games. All of the officials were calling the same sort of game. At least there was consistency across the board. What that tells me is that the problem lies at the administration level. Our officials are doing the best that they can with the instructions they are given from the BSC. Yes, we have some inexperienced refs, but that is always going to be the case. They were told that hands were not to be used to impede the opponent in any way. Our league has interpreted that as 'no touching'. I'm not sure that was the intended outcome of the directive, but that is what we have. It's very disruptive to the game and we have some of our officials blowing their whistle when they think something might happen or must have happened, even though they couldn't have seen it if it didn't happen. Anyway, we are getting a lot of head scratchers, and the fault lies at the feet of our BSC administrators. Not the refs themselves.

 

[STGWildcat]

I spent Saturday night watching parts of the other BSC games. All of the officials were calling the same sort of game. At least there was consistency across the board. What that tells me is that the problem lies at the administration level. Our officials are doing the best that they can with the instructions they are given from the BSC. Yes, we have some inexperienced refs, but that is always going to be the case. They were told that hands were not to be used to impede the opponent in any way. Our league has interpreted that as 'no touching'. I'm not sure that was the intended outcome of the directive, but that is what we have. It's very disruptive to the game and we have some of our officials blowing their whistle when they think something might happen or must have happened, even though they couldn't have seen it if it didn't happen. Anyway, we are getting a lot of head scratchers, and the fault lies at the feet of our BSC administrators. Not the refs themselves.

Your watching of other in-conference games got me interested what the foul calls are like in other conferences, partially because when I watch non-Big Sky games, it seems like there is a similar issue throughout the entire NCAA. I found http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?98641-Foul-calls-per-conference

It's about a month and a half old, but still new enough to be relevant. The Big Sky conference is a little higher than average in terms of number of fouls called, but there are other conferences who have it much worse. For instance, the SEC and WCC, in the time period of that guy's observations, had more than 3.5 extra fouls called per game than the Big Sky. This doesn't take into account as to which types of fouls are called, but this can give us some sort of idea what other conferences are like.

A further study could exclude fouls near the end of games where players are purposely fouled in order to mount a comeback. It would also be helpful to exclude overtimes. The former wouldn't be worth our while to look into since it would require watching a lot of games as opposed to simply looking at box scores.

 

[oldrunner]

Your watching of other in-conference games got me interested what the foul calls are like in other conferences, partially because when I watch non-Big Sky games, it seems like there is a similar issue throughout the entire NCAA. I found http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?98641-Foul-calls-per-conference

It's about a month and a half old, but still new enough to be relevant. The Big Sky conference is a little higher than average in terms of number of fouls called, but there are other conferences who have it much worse. For instance, the SEC and WCC, in the time period of that guy's observations, had more than 3.5 extra fouls called per game than the Big Sky. This doesn't take into account as to which types of fouls are called, but this can give us some sort of idea what other conferences are like.

A further study could exclude fouls near the end of games where players are purposely fouled in order to mount a comeback. It would also be helpful to exclude overtimes. The former wouldn't be worth our while to look into since it would require watching a lot of games as opposed to simply looking at box scores.

One of my biggest problems with how BSC refs have been managed is that when our teams get to post season play, and get independent officials, we don't know how to play with the 'new' rules. We get held, pushed, and bodied up in a game that is much more physical than we are used to. We expect fouls to be called and when the are not, we get frustrated. It puts our teams at a much bigger deficit than they should be. If it is true that the whole country has gone this way, and officiating is consistent, then I am OK with it. We will see when the NCAA tournament comes around.