The Zombies Are Still Alive

Have you ever watched a really good zombie movie? I'll admit that I'm not a biggie for the scary movie genre, but I can respect the zombie movie. Shaun of the Dead is one of the better ones out there among the more recent zombie movies (the cell phone thing is hilarious), and it's really hard to top the original Night of the Living Dead (first part of 17 is here ... seriously, the opening credits just creeps me out to this day), except if you believe the internet hype on the Peter Jackson directed Dead Alive, which is supposed to be pretty funny).

Well, I feel, much like our fans, like we have been watching a zombie movie masked as Idaho State's men's basketball season, because they Bengals, er, the Zombies can't be killed (apparently our opponents aren't going for the head or taking out our brains). Seriously, have you ever seen a team that constantly looks dead in the water, only to be given renewed hope later in the day or week? To recap...Idaho State could afford to lose to Weber State if Northern Colorado and Northern Arizona swept their weekend series' with Portland State and Eastern Washington, and the two Montana schools sweep Sacramento State. So what happens? Northern Arizona down two in overtime with 5.0 left sends Julian Olubuyi on a Tyus Edney-esque length of the court dash to tie the game, and then survive a point blank miss in the second OT to win by one, and then NAU bests Eastern Washington in OT on Saturday. Northern Colorado meanwhile survived the loss of Devon Beitzel and swept, and Sacramento State came up empty in the Big Sky state, leaving the zombies breathing once more.

So what's left for the Zombies? Well, Idaho State gets into the conference tournament as the #6 seed in one of two ways...ISU is in automatically with two wins OR they get in with this scanario...ISU defeats Portland State, Weber State defeats Eastern Washington on Friday and Portland State on Sunday, and Sacramento State loses once to either Northern Arizona or Northern Colorado. That second deal works because ISU wins a 5-11 tiebreaker with Portland State, or with Portland State and Eastern Washington, but not with Portland State, Eastern Washington AND Sacramento State.

It's funny, talking shop with Geoff Alexander, he and I picked out after the NAU game that even though they were the closest team to us, because of the schedules and the fact we still had one game with Portland State left, that PSU would be the team we would have to catch...and he was dead-on accurate.

Anyways, watch the Zombies and the Vikings on Big Sky TV Friday night, because the season is coming down to that one right now.

Women's Basketball Scenarios...
Still a little to early to tell, but two wins clinches a spot, or a win and a Northern Colorado loss, or two UNC losses. TUESDAY EDIT: After finally getting to the bottom of a bizarre 8-8 tie between Idaho State, Portland State, Montana and Sacramento State, and going down several tiebreakers, ISU would still be 6th in that scenario, so yes, one win and they are in, one one loss by UNC.

Oh My Word....
Some of you might have forgotten we had a tennis team, but the women's broke a 25-match losing streak that dated back to March of 2008 with a 4-3 win over North Dakota on Saturday.