Gidal's Look at the Big Sky Polls

Excellent Bozeman writer Gidal Kaiser took a look at the Big Sky polls, both men and women over at Blue & Gold.

It is definitely worth a read, as he is a great source of Montana State info normally and a voter in the media poll. He has some changes to what how he would rank if he did it over again, but the beauty of the Big Sky (and college basketball) is that the [preseason polls are meaningless. It will retain its importance and value up to the first game of the year, at which point it will be meaningless.

Eastern moves to third, NAU is fourth, PSU is fifth and MSU is sixth. Maybe. Maybe PSU moves up, as does MSu and NAU drops to sixth. I just don’t get why everyone is so bullish on PSU, NAU and UNC. The group (MSU, NAU, UNC, PSU) all lost a considerable amount of production, and I’d rank UNC’s as the greatest loss, then MSU’s, then NAU. Tapscott and Odum were two of the Vikings’ better players and they lost their 3-point marksman (Melvin Jones), but they underachieved season. So will four transfers make that much difference? (The argument could be made for MSU as well in that vein). NAU’s Rogers will miss the entire first semester, but theoretically be back in time for conference play. If he’s not, NAU might nosedive. It might not, though as the only thing anyone is sure of are the top two and bottom two.

Just a quick response to Gidal about Portland State, as he wondered why they were rated so high in the polls (fifth) whereas I have them all the way up to three. He mentions Odum and Tapscott, but the biggest reasons I think they could finish as high as third is they will be getting key contributors from JUCO transfers, Division I transfers, and redshirts. In particular, I am excited to see Lateef McMullan, Michael Harthun, and Brandon Cataldo play. Those are three guys that not a lot of Big Sky fans know about yet, but I think that could change by the end of the year.

Less than 3 weeks to the start of the season.

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