A Competitive Night in the Big Sky

Six Big Sky teams were in action on Wednesday night, and five of them played at least competitively, mostly against some solid competition. I touched on Northern Colorado losing to Wyoming, but let's take a quick peek around the rest of the conference.

- Southern Utah picked up their first win of the year, a 68-58 win over Carroll College. Normally a win over Carroll College isn't really anything to write home about, but we have to say congrats to head coach Nick Robinson for his first career victory!

- Eastern Washington also picked up their first win of the year, but it was a dogfight to pick up the win over USC Upstate. Collin Chiverton had 19 points in 18 minutes (before fouling out), but I think the story is freshman Venky Jois, who had his second straight double-double. Jois had an efficient 19 points, going 8/12 from the field and 3/4 from the stripe. He added 11 rebounds to go along with that.

Before the year I said that Jois would be the best freshman in the conference, and he has not done anything to make me think otherwise (though DeWayne Russell may have something to say about that.

- Montana State and Idaho State both played solid basketball in losses. MSU fell to Air Force they were within a point at the half), while ISU fell to Utah (after leading 29-22 at the half).

The Bobcats played well offensively, taking good care of the ball and shooting 44%, but they couldn't get stops. The Falcons shot 59% from the floor and had nine offensive rebounds. That was simply too much for MSU to overcome.

Idaho State played a lot of zone against the Utes, and it worked for a long time. Eventually, Utah just would not allow ISU to score points, and began to get the ball going in transition a bit more. Sophomore stat sheet stuffer Tomas Sanchez had 6 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals for the Bengals.

- In the one stinker of the night for the Big Sky, Portland State got hammered by their cross-town rival Portland. The Pilots won 81-60 and I'm not even sure the game was that close. The Vikings struggled on both ends of the court, and it looks like it may be a long season for Tyler Geving. Renado Parker (10), Michael Harthun (11), and Dre Winston (13) were in double figures for PSU, who shot 36% from the floor.

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