We’ll start with simplicity: Sacramento State’s Joe Eberhard has been selected as the first Big Sky Conference men’s basketball Player of the Week. And here’s the weekly news and notes that come out each Tuesday afternoon.
Of course, it doesn’t include Weber State’s 73-63 win over Utah State. Junior shooting guard Scott Bamforth scored a career-high 28 points on 7-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc. His performance, and that of his team (12-of-23) brings the season total to 29-of-52 (.558), which is emblematic of an opening-week trend in the conference. The Wildcats (2-0) and Eastern Washington Eagles (1-1, 24-59, .407) have used the long-range bomb to score close to half their total baskets made (29-of-57, .508, Weber; 24-of-50 .480, EWU), and six teams have already sunk 10 or more 3-pointers just a couple games into the campaign. With five straight days of games opening today, it will be interesting to see how this early trend plays out.
There’s not much else to discuss aside from a handful of blowouts over cupcakes and “moral victories” as Montana State came back from a 12-point halftime deficit before falling by six at Arizona State; Oklahoma dispatched Idaho State but just by four points; and Eastern Washington held a 64-62 lead at Gonzaga before the West Coast Conference powerhouse turned it around for an eight-point win. It did produce one of the better quotes I’ve read in a while.
“I am pleased with our effort,” Idaho State coach Joe O’Brien told isubengals.com. “I would have loved to win the game, but when you have 21 turnovers on the road, you don’t win. You can stay close and some people can call it a moral victory, but I am too old for moral victories. I am greedy. I want to win.”
We’ll have a more complete weekend wrap on Sunday — though there will be games Sunday and Monday — and then get into a regular news & notes blog for Wednesday mornings.
