Brad Huse Will Return as Montana State Coach

Throughout this season, Brad Huse for Montana State was squarely on the hot seat. He was entering the last year of his deal, and the results of his tenure had been mixed. Lots of promising finishes had ended with big collapses in the second half of conference play, and the fan base was getting a bit tired of him.

Apparently though, he did enough this season to extend his coaching career in Bozeman. The Bobcats finished the year 13-17 overall, but they were 10-10 in conference play (including a win over Weber State), and finished with the fourth seed in the conference before falling to Northern Colorado in the first round of the tournament. However, Gidal Kaiser reports that MSU and Huse are working on a contract extension of some type:

No deal has been struck, but Director of Athletics Peter Fields and MSU’s Board of Regents are discussing the parameters of a deal that would bring the men’s basketball coach back for an eighth year — and possibly longer, Bill Lamberty, the school’s assistant athletic director of media relations, confirmed Thursday.

Huse is 93-117 overall in his MSU tenure, including 55-61 in Big Sky play and 2-7 in the conference tournament in his seven years. Those are not terrible numbers by any means (heck, the 2-7 record means that they have been to the conference tournament every season), but it's not really enough to excite the fan base (just check out a message board for the team). This past season, MSU had an average attendance of 2,523 fans per game, which doesn't come close to filling the 7,200 person capacity in Worthington Arena (in fairness, that home attendance was the fourth highest mark in the Big Sky).

What this means is that there is a chance that all Big Sky coaches will return for next season. There are no other obvious candidates to be fired (I think Brian Katz and Tyler Geving should be safe for at least another year), so probably the only change would come from either Wayne Tinkle or Randy Rahe moving up. In an industry of lots of changes, that stability could be a really good thing.

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