By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
In a rarity of sorts this coming weekend the Montana Lady Griz will be out for two healthy helpings of revenge, as Northern Colorado and the University of North Dakota come to Missoula. Northern Colorado is in danger of Missing the Conference tournament for the first time since 2007, this after having play in the tournament title game the past two seasons.
The University Of North Dakota with a sweep this weekend in Montana would likely lock up the host role for the 2014 women’s Big Sky basketball tournament, meaning that the event would have its fifth different location in the past 5 years.
North Dakota features the top two rebounders in Big Sky play with Madi Buck and Mia Loyd.
Despite this only being their second season in the Big Sky Conference UND has made 4 previous appearances at Dahlberg for the Annual Lady Griz tournament.
Carly Selvig leads the league by a wide margin in shot blocking. Selvig and her cousin Jordan Sullivan are both in the top 10 in the Big Sky in defensive rebounds.
A sweep on the road this weekend will make Wayne Tinkle the second winningest coach in Griz basketball history surpassing his former Griz coach Mike Montgomery. Tinkle team is on a five game winning streak while Montgomery’s final Griz team lost 5 of their last 9.
It could be a very high scoring weekend for the Griz, as Northern Colorado leads the Big Sky in scoring and the Griz, UNC and North Dakota have three of the four weakest defense infield goal defenses.
Good to see that Griz sophomore center Andy Martin is seventh in the Big Sky in shot blocking.
With the opening of the 2014 football season the MSU Bobcats will make their second ever visit to Arkansas. On December 31, 1956 the Bobcats played St. Joe’s of Indiana in the NAIA national title game, which ended in a 0-0 tie. In facing Arkansas State it marks a rematch for the Bobcats as they had faced ASU in the 1-AA quarterfinals in 1984.
This week Montana’s outstanding wrestlers gather for the 26th consecutive year at the Billings Metra. Prior to 1989 the State wrestling tournaments were held in three different locations by classification. In 1988 Montana wrestlers traveled more miles to get to their state meets than any state in the Continental U.S. thus leading to a single locations beginning in 1989.
One of the true surprises on the 2014 PGA golf tour has been 32 year old Canadian Graham Deleat of Ontario. Deleat stands 12th currently on the PGA money list and played his college golf at Boise State. Ironically the day Deleat was born, January 22, 1982, the Boise State mens basketball team was in Missoula getting thumped by the Grizzlies.
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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.