Since last week’s rankings, Big Sky teams went a combined 3-7 and the three wins came courtesy of a small university in Walla Walla, Wash., an NAIA school from Montana and a Division III school in Colorado.
In response, the committee (of one) considered dropping the entire conference one spot. That would have meant slotting the “No. 1 team” at No. 2 and going from there. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and decided that was a silly gimmick.
Without further ado.
1. Northern Colorado 5-2
Last week: No. 1
The Bears were one of this week’s wins. Northern Colorado obliterated that previously mentioned Division III team — something called Colorado College — 96-57 at home.
There’s not much to take away from the game. No Bear starter played more than 18 minutes and four UNC players off the bench finished in double figures.
2. Weber State 1-4
Last week: No. 3
The Wildcats game at Texas-Arlington was postponed because of bad weather in Dallas. The committee (of one) can only assume the weather looked something like Ogden does this time of season every day, but that must be frightening for the fair-weather folks of Texas.
Last night, Utah Valley upended Weber State 62-59. The Wolverines, 4-5 overall, are undefeated at home this season. So, yeah, Weber isn’t too impressive with four losses on its record after playing five games. But we’re overwhelmed with their talent.
3. Idaho State 3-3
Last week: No. 4
Four games on the road against quality Division I opponents and Idaho State has played well to really well in three of them.
The Bengals beat San Francisco in overtime, lost by two to CSU Bakersfield and led an 8-1 Utah team by 15 points in the first half. That’s a major improvement from last season’s road woes where the Bengals lost 17 games by an average of 13.8 points.
One more quick note: For chunks of ISU’s game at Utah, Bengal guard Tomas Sanchez was the best player on the floor.
Here’s his points, assists and field-goal percentage this year compared to last.
2013-14: 16.2, 4.7, 49 percent
2012-13: 10.3, 3.9, 43.5 percent
Those numbers show major improvement, and when conference play starts in a few weeks there are few things more valuable than a heady senior point guard.
4. Eastern Washington 5-3
Last week: No. 2
In the Eagles lone game last week, they went to Saint Mary’s of the West Coast Conference and left with a 28-point beatdown (93-65).
Losing on Saint Mary’s home floor — where the Gaels have won 25 straight nonconference games — isn’t a bad thing, and sophomore guard Tyler Harvey had another great game with 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting. Harvey has scored at least 13 points in every game for the Eagles. He’s an emerging star.
Simple math tells the committee (of one) that EWU, with its five wins, should sit at least one spot above Idaho State with its three Ws. But the Eagles have beaten a Division III team, an NAIA program, Boston, LIU Brooklyn and Seattle. None of those were true road wins, so Idaho State’s victory at San Francisco stands as the tiebreaker right now.
5. Montana 2-4
Last week: No. 6
The Grizzlies beat to Idaho 69-58 in Missoula last night.
Before that game, Montana’s Kareem Jamar, the reigning Big Sky player of the year, is averaging 19.6 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.6 assists a game, leading the Griz in all three categories.
So the good news for Montana is that the conference’s best player resides in Missoula. The bad news is that they look a little thin otherwise. If Jamar suffers any kind of injury (picture me knocking on wood furiously to counteract that thought) the Grizzlies are in trouble.
6. North Dakota 2-6
Last week: No. 5
Mascot-less North Dakota fell to Butler 79-64 last Saturday and Bowling Green 79-69 Wednesday night.
North Dakota is dead last in the Big Sky for scoring defense allowing 83 points a contest (through the Butler game). Even worse, opponents have hit 51.4 percent of their attempts against the porous UND defense.
Granted, some of the teams North Dakota has played (Wisconsin, Cal Poly, Butler) are solid programs, but to this point of the season UND has the worst defense in the league.
7. Portland State 4-3
Last week: No. 7
Portland State lost its first home game of the year to Portland 92-76.
The Vikings have dropped their last two after winning the previous four. But just like Idaho State, Portland State has shown flashes that they will contend for a Big Sky postseason tournament spot after finishing last in the league standings a year ago.
Through seven games, PSU’s biggest improvement has come defensively. Only Northern Colorado is allowing fewer points a contest.
8. Montana State 3-5
Last week: No. 9
Last Saturday, Montana State beat up on a winless Walla Walla University squad 109-54 after trailing 15-7 early in the first half.
Walla Walla, the Wolves, stink, so we have no idea if the Bobcats — who have used several different starting lineups to this point — are improving from the ball club that lost by 29 points to Cal State Fullerton at home to start the year. But we’ll know more after they play at Portland this Sunday.
9. Sacramento State 2-4
Last week: No. 8
The Hornets lost at UTEP 69-51 in their only game last week.
But I don’t want to write about Sac State’s basketball team. I want to focus on the fact that the projected high in Sacramento today is 58 degrees. Compare that to Pocatello where we can expect to reach one degree above freezing for like the first time in weeks (or it just feels like weeks). The committee (of one) grew up in Montana and should be acclimated to winter weather, but it’s not yet mid-December and we’re already dreaming of warm, sunny summer days.
10. Northern Arizona 2-7
Last week: No. 10
In a respectable home loss, NAU dropped a 76-66 decision to Hawaii.
Hawaii, with a 6-2 record this season, beat Montana by 11 before taking out the Lumberjacks by 10 last Saturday. It’s a positive result for a Northern Arizona team that’s shown life in close losses to USC, Drake and Fresno State.
11. Southern Utah 1-5
Last week: No. 11
The Thunderbirds continued their ineptitude last week, losing by 27 points to Cal State Northridge.
Southern Utah is last in the Big Sky in scoring offense, offensive field-goal percentage, rebounding margin, assists per game and assist-to-turnover ratio, hence they’ve earned this spot in the rankings.
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