By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
Their meeting in Super Bowl 48 will not be the first time the Broncos and Seahawks have met in the post-season. In the 1983 AFC Wild Card game Seattle dominated the Broncos and rookie quarterback John Elway in Seattle’s first ever play-off game. When Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson was born current Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning was in the seventh grade in New Orleans. By the way, this isn’t the first time two west coast teams have had to travel the width of the U.S. to play in the Super Bowl. In 1995 the Forty-Niners and Chargers went to Miami where San Francisco routed San Diego.
In recent years the Big Sky Women’s basketball scene has seen historic balance. Four different schools have hosted the conference tournament over the past 4 seasons. Three times in the last 8 years the regular season champ didn’t claim the tournament title. Since the start of the 2010-11 season both Montana and Northern Colorado have won 67 games overall while Montana State and Idaho State have won 63 games over that span.
Thursday night’s Idaho State-Montana game will feature a match-up between the Big Sky Conference’s top two shot blocker in the Bengals Jessica Tingey and Montana’s Carly Selvig.
What were you doing on February 26, 2011? On that date nearly 3 years ago the Weber State Women’s basketball team beat Sacramento State in Ogden. That win is the most recent Big Sky win for the Wildcats. The Wildcats enter play this week having not won a Conference road game since February 11, 2010. The Lady Griz have won their last 6 meetings with the Wildcats and past 7 in Missoula.
In the 3 seasons Bill Evans was on the Grizzly coaching staff Montana won 68 games, in his season and a half at Idaho State the Bengals have won 12 games. Evans appears to be building a program as 7 different Bengals are ranked in the top 5 in the most recent Big Sky stats.
The only Big Sky Venue the Grizzly men haven’t won at recently is the Dee Center in Ogden where Weber has defeated the Griz each of the last 3 years. The last time the Griz beat Weber in Ogden was March 10, 2010 when Anthony Johnson put on a dominating performance in the Big Sky tournament title.
Over the last four seasons Weber State and Montana have ruled the Big Sky Mens race. Since the start of the 2010-11 season Weber has won 80 while Montana has posted 78 wins, next closest in the Big Sky is Northern Colorado with 54 wins over the past three and a half seasons.
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Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.
Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament
When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.