Things I Think I Know

Thoughts, musings, reflections and inferences from watching the Idaho State men's and women's basketball exhibition games on Friday:

--This ain't your father's -- or Jon Newlee's -- women's basketball team. Seton Sobolewski has definitely put a stamp on the Bengals in just one exhibition game. Gone is the fun-and-gun offense of his predecessor, replaced by the "patience squared" attack. (That's as in, "Patience, patience," Coach S's frequent admonition as the Bengals walk the ball into the front court). The Bengals will certainly take some time in adjusting to Sobolewski's motion O -- there were times Friday when it seemed like there were three ISU players all bunched in the same passing lane -- but it looks like everyone is going to get their chance to score. The Bengals are going to make other teams work hard on defense, and that's not a bad thing.

--Freshman Sheila Adams (pictured above) can play a little hoop, no? As Frank Mercogliano noted to me as we watched the Utah freshman put up 16 points in her debut, "You can certainly see how Jon (Newlee) thought she might eventually replace Andrea Lightfoot." Yes, I can. In fact, I think we'll be talking about who is going to replace Sheila Adams in four years.

--The Bengal ladies may be a touch thin this year, it doesn't look like they are going to go much more than 7 or 8 deep when the games start counting. They certainly could have used Ally Sissel and Bianca Cheever, two players who chose to follow Newlee to northern Idaho. But help appears to be on the way. The early signing period for basketball begins Wednesday and runs through Nov. 19. The Journal has already reported on two players expected to sign with the Bengals, and I'm told a true post player may also be on the way.

--On to the men. You know what I love about Joe O'Brien? Picking up a technical foul in an exhibition game. The man competes. Now, after exhibition wins over Montana Tech and Rocky Mountain College, things get serious, and Coach OB is all about wins. He knows that if the Bengals play as sloppy against Eastern Oregon this Friday as they did in the first half against Rocky Mountain College, they are setting themselves up for an L. O'Brien started "coaching to win" in the second half Friday night, when you started to see a real core lineup emerge. This week against EOU, I would expect a further refining of the troops.

--Will Austin Kilpatrick and Felix Caspari be part of the "game day" rotation? We shall see. O'Brien said A-K has served sufficient time in the doghouse, but how will he fit into the rotation? I haven't heard as of Monday afternoon whether Caspari has passed the NCAA Clearinghouse yet. One thing is clear -- if both are able to play, whether it's this week or sometime soon, minutes are going to become a precious commodity on this team. Particularly at the wing positions. By my count, you have six guys who are serious contenders for playing time on the wings--Kal Bay, Kilpatrick, Matt Stucki, Amorrow Morgan, Donnie Carson and Phyllip Taylor. (And Mike Lacey was pondering whether to redshirt????) Now, somebody is going to have to play the nominal "point guard," and if Sherrod Baldwin is not the immediate answer, that will open up minutes for one of the wings. Still, that's a lot of talent to share a maximum of 120 minutes a game.

--I think it's safe to say the Sherrod Baldwin experiment is over, at least for now. Oh, I certainly am not about to write off the young freshman from Memphis -- he will be a contributor, hopefully before the end of this season. But you can't play two games without an assist and call yourself a serious candidate for the starting point guard position. Bay, playing with an ab injury and flack jacket, certainly demonstrated what he can mean to this Bengal team against Rocky Mountain. I expect to see he, Morgan and Stucki taking turns initiating the ISU offense for much of this year.

--Okay, I now know how to spell his first name -- Deividas Busma. Thanks, Frank. I still can't pronounce it, but he'll be Big D before you know it, anyway. Eleven blocks in the first two exhibition games makes me think that someone other than guard Austin Kilpatrick will lead ISU in that statistical category this year. Still, Big D is going to have to learn to play better fundamental defense as the season progresses. The "big boys" like BYU, Utah, Wisconsin and Washington State have plenty of skilled players upfront who will go right at Big D, and he won't be on the floor more than 10 minutes against any of those guys if he doesn't use his feet more. Repeat after me: big men take more time to develop than guards. By the time the Big Sky season rolls around, though, it will be awful comforting seeing Big D playing deep safety back there.

--Every year around this time, you will hear D-1 coaches talking up the various NAIA and D-II schools they are bringing in for exhibition games. Sometimes, believe it or not, this is not just BS. (See Northwestern's loss to Robert Morris, for example -- ouch!). O'Brien is not just blowing smoke when he talks about Eastern Oregon, either. The Mountaineers come into Reed on Friday with four starters back from a 26-win team, as well as newcomers Kris Groce (who averaged almost 11 points a game for Sac State two years ago), and 6-7 Jordan Gregg of Lewiston, who scored 16 points a game in EOU's first three games this year. The Mountaineers are 4-0 and coming off an overtime win over No. 22-rated Lewis-Clark State, so they will be battle tested. Don't believe anyone who tells you ISU has to win this game by double-digits in order to impress. Especially at this stage in the season, any old win will be sufficient.

--Brad B.

And thanks for being Bengal fans. It ain't always easy, but it's always fun.

My First Look at Bengal Hoops

I'm excited about getting my first look at both of the ISU basketball teams Friday night. (I stayed over in San Luis on Monday to visit family, so I missed the first men's exhibition.) There are lots of new faces on both teams, starting at the top with new women's coach Seton Sobolewski (heretofore to be known as "Coach S."), who will unveil his new motion offense in this, the post-Doma-Lightfoot era.

I don't know if Felix Caspari or Kal Bay, two of the more intriguing newcomers to the men's team, will play Friday night, but I hope so. I'm also looking forward to seeing big Davidas Busma (pictured above) and little Sherrod Baldwin for the first time. As I noted in a previous blog, we're all a little smitten with the possibilities of new players, but I know that guys like Amorrow Morgan and Matt Stucki are going to have to carry this team, at least for the first few months of the season.

The Bengals will probably be tested a bit more against Rocky Mountain College than they were in their opener. The Battlin' Bears are coming off a 22-9 season last year, and are 3-0 against an admittedly soft early schedule this season. I know this much: Bengal Coach Joe O'Brien will not be happy if Rocky Mountain matches the 69 points they put up against ISU in last season's exhibition game. The Bengals were outscored 43-37 in the second half of that contest (which ISU won, 84-69), and that kind of defensive effort is likely to spark that famous O'Brien Irish temper.

Rocky Mountain again features a familiar name to Bengal fans -- Chase Sukut, whose brother Chad played under former ISU Coach Doug Oliver several years ago. Sukut, who began his college career at Wisconsin-Green Bay, dropped 22 points on the Bengals last year, and was the leading scorer for the Bears with a 17-point a game average on the season. Also back for RMC is forward Devin Uskoski, who had 9 points and 8 boards against the Bengals last year.

I hope to see you all at Reed for the men's/women's doubleheader, beginning at 5:45 p.m. Friday. Drop by the broadcast table and say hello. Jerry and I will be on the air with our pre-game show about 30 minutes before the men's game, which will begin about 7:45 p.m. or so.

--Brad B.

And thanks for being a Bengal fan. It ain't always easy, but it's always fun.

Gotta Hand It to Those Wildcats

It's tough to swallow, but you just have to hand it to the Weber State Wildcats, who are coming into Holt Arena Saturday with a chance to clinch the Big Sky's automatic playoff berth. The Wildcats haven't been to the FCS (nee 1-AA) playoffs since 1991, and the administration in Ogden came very close to shutting down the Weber State football program shortly thereafter.

With a last-second "bake-sale" like fundraising effort, Weber football partisans were able to save the program by raising enough money to cover a significant budget deficit. This all occurred shortly before I started broadcasting ISU football games in 1994, and I remember talking to WSU Coach Dave Arslanian immediately thereafter. All the talk about potentially eliminating football at Weber cost the Cats several recruits -- and one existing Wildcat, Brad Otton, who later quarterbacked USC against my alma mater, Northwestern, in the 1996 Rose Bowl.

As far as I know, the Weber football program hasn't been seriously in jeopardy since, although the quality of play and fan support has waxed and waned over the past 15 years. Weber did manage to extract a sizable donation from the Elizabeth Dee Shaw Stewart Foundation in the early 2000s, resulting in a 38,000-square foot addition to their stadium that includes luxury boxes and a Wildcat All-American room, among other amenities. Three years later, Weber hired former Utah Head Coach Ron McBride, who, at age 65, was all set for one last coaching hurrah. There was a great deal of excitement surrounding McBride's hire, and a lot of Wildcat fans expected instant gratification. (Imagine that -- college sports fans expecting results NOW!).

It didn't come. Coach Mac was 15-18 in his first three seasons at Weber, and a lot of Wildcat fans gave the program the old "Bengal shrug," which is the gesture ISU fans have perfected after yet another football coaching savior has been shown the door. The shrug is usually accompanied by mutterings along the lines of, "If Coach XXX couldn't get it done at Idaho State (Weber State), who can?"

Yet here we are, heading for the finish line in the Big Sky Conference race and the Wildcats have just about lapped the field. They've already dispatched perennial kingpin Montana, and manhandled Northern Arizona on the road. With just winless Idaho State and disappointing Eastern Washington left, the Wildcats look like a shoe-in to win the conference title outright.

So how did Coach Mac and his staff arrive at this exalted position, when early returns indicated more Ogden mediocrity? Well, in preparing for my broadcast this week, the one thing that really jumped out at me while I was looking at the Weber two-deeps is the relative cosmopolitan nature of the Wildcats' roster. These guys recruit from all over the West: the offense features two starters from Arizona, three from Hawaii, one from California, and five from Utah. The defense, meanwhile, has four starters from California, three from Utah, two from Idaho (J.D. Folsom, Salmon and Biff [gotta love that name] Swan from Jerome), and one each from Wyoming and Oklahoma.

Coach Mac and his staff obviously have deep recruiting roots. Recruiting is about relationships, and when your head coach has been in the game as long as McBride, you can build a network of high school and JC coaches that entangles much of the West Coast. That's how you convince a future all-American QB like Cameron Higgins, for example, to leave the warmth of Hawaii for northern Utah.

Next comes two bigger tests for McBride and Co.: stepping on to the national stage and winning a playoff game or two; and maintaining consistency as a Big Sky contender. The first will partially be a product of matchups: who will the Wildcats draw in round one, and where will the game be played?

In order to help assure achievement of the second, meanwhile, Weber is in the process of negotiating a contract extension with McBride and his staff, as we speak. At the age of 69, you know those recruiting against Mac and staff are constantly raising the "Joe Pa" question -- how much longer do you expect McBride to be around? The contract extension will purport to at least partially address that issue. It will also, as McBride told the Salt Lake Tribune, "take care of my assistants." Read that any way you like, but I expect it will result in the designation of an heir apparent, to further sooth future recruits.

No, as a Bengal fan it's awful hard to accept the fact that our archrivals are coming to Holt on Saturday for a coronation. If the Bengals are going to provide any salve at all to their beleagured fans this season, raining on the Wildcat pennant parade would seem most appropriate.

--Brad B.

And thanks for being a Bengal fan -- it ain't always easy, but it's always fun.