Reno Tournament

[Spudhead]

PBP and VOTB, now that the tournament is history, what was your honest opinion of it? What were the pluses and minuses? How would you improve it? What was the consensus you got from others?

Just from watching online, it really seems each school needs to make an investment with it. I saw some teams' cheerleaders and mascots, but not all. Were there any buses or any travel deals advertised in Poky, like in the paper or elsewhere?

 

[BengalBannMan]

The Reno Tournament was awesome. As a spectator, I watched 20 out of the 22 games. And the other two games I followed on big Sky TV while eating and playing downtown. There are a few things that could be done better from ISU, but was still very enjoyable. I think that most people wouldn't think it would be as cool as it was to be there. I'll reserve more comments until we here from the professionals. (Jerry & Mark) But I will say, as far as bands, cheerleaders/dancers, and mascots...NAU, Montana, and Idaho did a great job. I really appreciated the entertainment and college atmosphere they helped to create at their games.

 

[PBP]

For whatever its worth:

I like the idea of the neutral site format, I think the events center is a great arena and very, VERY fair for the athletes which to me has always been my first consideration. I disagree with the idea of letting every team participate, I'm of the 'old school' that feels that post season play should be a reward for a good season, not a birth right, but with that said, I understand why the conference decided to do it.

There were some bugs naturally... both Jerry and myself had phone line issues. I understand Mitch Wigness at UND and possibly some others had some problems too and hopefully that can be fixed or upgraded by next year. You have to go through it though to find out what has to be done so again that's something I understand.

I have asked the conference to consider allowing the head coach to spend five minutes with home radio before heading back to the press conferences in the future. With only (by my count) six Big Sky schools broadcasting all home and road women's basketball games with 'local' announcers through various outlets now I'd think the conference would want to 'reward' those loyal fan bases (as well as the expenses from those schools to do the games) by having the radio person actually get to speak to the head coach. No disrespect to the assistant coaches who came on the air (in my case) but when a situation arises like when ISU beat Montana State on that last second bomb, the fans of said team deserve to hear from the head coach. I'm sure since the print media has more time before their deadlines that they could say talk to the players first and then have the head coach join the presser after speaking to 'home' radio. Again I'm not talking about 20 minutes...even five would be great!

Marla Denham (head of officiating) and I had some time to talk about an issue as well that impacts the broadcast especially during Big Sky games regardless of whether it's the regular season or the post season and I'm hoping the conference may be able to help with it. A lot of times the game is stopped and officials walk over to the scorer's table or review a play and we are on the air with no real idea of what is going on, what is being reviewed or why. If there is a clock / timing problem, a deliberate foul or something else. If an official or someone from the home team's scorers table can come over and just tell us what is going on it would help a lot. I told Marla, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, often times I'm taking my best guess on the air because we have no information coming to us, no monitor...nothing. Just a ref stopping by and giving us a 15 seconds explanation would really be a lot of help.

Finally I've started to float this idea around to some of the coaches and am getting a positive feedback from them. I'd like the conference to start a All Freshman Team in addition to the other awards that are handed out at season's end. The Big Sky Conference is a very good women's basketball league...just look at the RPI's from a conference standpoint every year. Every year the talent gets better and better and I think good freshmen are being overlooked in the process unless they are absolutely special. Numerous other conferences around the country have all Freshman teams and I just think it would be a way to honor some good young players who because of their youth as well as the talent in the conference are being overlooked.

Just my opinion.

PBP