Saturday, July 3, 2010

Men's Basketball to Take Preseason Canadian Tour

The ISU website is undergoing maintenance, so this will eventually show up over there, so I'll post it here for now.

ISU will head north in August

ISU will head north in August

July 2, 2010

Pocatello, ID --- With just four returning players and a host of newcomers, head coach Joe O'Brien knew that much of preseason practice in October and November would be about getting his team to bond, gel and learn his system of play. Well, O'Brien and company can get a big head start on the 2010-11 season as he has announced that the team will embark on a preseason tour of Vancouver, British Columbia in August, playing three games as part of Basketball Travelers, Inc.

The team will be able to practice from August 5 through August 13 before heading out on a long bus ride to Vancouver, where the team will play three games over a four-day period from Monday, August 16 to Thursday August 19. The only definite opponent set up so far is the University of Fraser Valley, who will host Idaho State on Tuesday night at 7:00 pm Pacific Time.

The Bengals return just four players from last year, one of which, Deividas Busma, redshirted after playing just seven games due to an injury. Also returning is Broderick Gilchrest, who started at point guard and is a senior, senior guard Mike Lacey, and junior guard Sherrod Baldwin.

The trip allows ISU to take advantage of a new rule in place this year that allows incoming players to take part in an international tour if they have taken and passed three hours of summer school, meaning seven of the eight newcomers will join the team. Only Kamil Gawrzydek, who is not in summer school, will not make the trip. A team can take an international trip once every four years.

"A tour like this is a tremendous benefit to us with all the new players we have entering the program," said Joe O'Brien. "Not only will we get a week's worth of practice, but we will play three games against other schools that will allow our staff to evaluate our team in a game setting."

O'Brien added, "The trip will also allow for the team to really get to know each other and bond, since a bus ride to Vancouver isn't exactly a short trip, but that is only going to benefit us down the road."

The team after the tour will have a chance to visit some of the sites of the 2010 Winter Olympics, including Whistler, British Columbia before heading back to Pocatello. "Culturally, this is a chance to really enhance the collegiate experience for our team, to see another country, and to see some of the places in the Olympics that they got to see on television will make this a great experience, not just for basketball, but educationally as well."

Thursday, July 1, 2010

New Fiscal Year! I'm Liking Me some 2010-11!!!

Hey gang, well, I haven't been blogging too much, but I think folks will enjoy the reason for that. Well, the main reason for that...true, I took a little vacation with my 14-year old daughter to Colorado so she could see her first major league baseball games. Also true..within 10 minutes of being in the ballpark at Coors Field a Milwaukee Brewer bullpen catcher tossed her a baseball.

Also true, I took about 10 days to go to Los Angeles to get presented with my van (you can watch it and my perfect zinger on Michael Emerson on youtube) and then I spent some time in Mesa, Arizona as the official scorer for the Western Athletic Conference baseball tournament. However, much of my time has been spent on a special little project I think you fans, and heck, anyone associated with the Bengals should be excited about.

Go to this page here...look at that map where Pocatello is located. See it? We have officially joined the ICS/Sidearm family, and we have been actively working on the new site, which is now in the design phase.

This is really really really exciting, and what has already been a tremendous amount of work is only going to become more work for us down here, but in the end it will be so worth it. Without going too deep and boring you folks to tears, there will be an Ask the A.D. section, text messaging of scores if you sign up, conference standings on the sport pages, individual sport page headers (so football players are on the football page, women's cross country on the WXC page, etc.), a fan center (with all off our marketing and promotions information, facebook, twitter, blogs, photos, wallpapers, etc.), donor information area, and new live stat applications (including soccer and softball). It's going to be fantastic. Oh yeah....an ONLINE STORE for Bengal gear! FINALLY!!!!! And the heaven's opened and the choirs sing! I'm more excited about that then anything else actually.

Also, I should mention that we have had a wonderful relationship with CBS properties for eight years, and they have been great throughout this process. They got us into a solid web presence, and now we are taking the next step.

I'll try to post updates here as we are in the process of stuff, but ICS has all the photos for the headers and design, and they have the basic info on the types of layouts that we are looking for. Should be great stuff.

HOOP NEWS
This will be on the site tomorrow once I get all the info, but the men's basketball team will be headed to Canada for a preseason three-game tour. This tour in mid-August is a huge advantage for ISU with all the newcomers, and most will be able to make the trip since they are in summer school already. Should be three games in the Vancouver area, so Bengal fans in that area should be on the lookout for us.

FORMER BENGAL HOOPSTERS GETTING HIRED
As the softball coaching search continues here at ISU, kudos to former Bengal greats Mandi Carver and D'Marr Suggs, who each picked up coaching duties in the last few days. Mandi, one of the all-time greats at Idaho State University and a no-brainer first ballot Hall of Famer in my mind, was hired at Cal State Bakersfield, meaning ISU might get to see her when we go there for basketball on December 7. D'Marr got hired onto to Louis Wilson's staff at Adams State as a graduate assistant. Two years ago D'Marr came to our game with UNC in Greeley, so this is a great opportunity for him.

SCHEDULE STUFF
Both basketball non-conferences are pretty set (the men have one opening for a home game if they can swing it), so those schedules will get released once the conference schedule is finalized (it's new this year with a Thursday/Saturday/Monday set up). ISU has a home weekend the same weekend as the conference track championships in Holt Arena, so we are working on swapping out a date, and once that's done, we will be able to release it. ISU is a home team in the bracket buster, although that will be in Reed Gym due to the Simplot Games, and it will be a split doubleheader most likely with the women, who host Montana that day as well.

OK, I'll keep you informed on the website stuff...keep sending in suggestions and thought on what you'd like to see....I haven't gotten much from you guys...

FM