Montana preview

I wasn't that scared of Pacific. Montana makes me a little more nervous. Part of it is due how both teams played in the first round and the other part is that Montana takes and makes a lot of 3s. Teams that don't rely on the 3 (Pacific) shoot a ton against us. Now imagine a Cinderella that shoots well against our sloppy perimeter defense. Scary. Here are my other thoughts.

Keys to the game
This is a good matchup for BC's best two player. Nevada's Fazekas was able to score against the Grizzlies close to the basket. It was only when he went outside that he got cold. Montana has no answer for Smith and Dudley. (But then again neither did Pacific and we know how that ended.) Since they are working off of the short turn around, I imagine Montana will use a lot of zone in an effort to slow our Flex down. This would seem to lend us the opportunity to get Marshall involved (in a good way). A week ago Marshall was able to work the zone as the baseline option. We should go back to that against any zone look on Saturday. I also think we should push the tempo a little. We are stronger and faster than Montana. We should not let them keep the scores and scoring opportunities to a minimum.



What I want to see
Nevada did not play poorly and still lost to Montana. We need to play as sound as we did against Pacific -- minimal turnovers. I would also like to see more of the press with Williams out front. His length and speed were very disrupting. We need Rice and/or Marshall to step up and produce some points. Smith and Dudley and Hinnant cannot do it all. Rice looked like he shaked off the cold start. Can Marshall? Defensively we cannot allow the open looks or the second chance opportunities. We havenÂ’t used a true zone in weeks. Maybe we should against Montana in an effort to improve our rebound off of missed 3s. We also need to avoid fouls. That is how the Griz beat Nevada.

BC should win this game easily. We have more experience, more talent, are better scoring per possession and much better than the Grizzdefensivelysivly. Yet, they cannot take this lightly or let up when they are ahead. The team showed its killer instinct against Maryland last week. Now would be another good time to use it.