Tuesday, March 17, 2009

The Madness is Upon Us



The 2009 Big Sky Conference WBB tournament lived up to its billing. Every game was hotly contested, even the semifinal between UM and ISU ended up being a great game. I know many people (including your truly) had predicted that game to be a rout, but just as they did all season long, the Bengals surprised us by playing one of their best games of the year and kept it close throughout.

The final between PSU and UM was another great game and I thought Altitude did a nice job of bringing it to us. In the end, you knew PSU/UM would settle the BSC for 2009. They were on a collision course.

UM drew a 13 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament. They will play the 4th seeded Pittsburgh Panthers in Seattle on Friday. I think that for only losing 4 games this season, 3 of which were to other NCAA tourney teams and the other to an NIT team, Montana deserved a better seed. This is a consistently good program that is better than a lot of the teams in the tournament. I would have seeded them at a 10 or an 11.

PSU earned an automatic bid in the WNIT and will host Portland on Thursday for the right to play Oregon State on Saturday. The Viks beat Portland already this season and were blasted by OSU. But, you have to like the fact that you get to stay in state for 2 rounds, who knows maybe PSU can make a run!