By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
On Sunday the Denver Broncos became only the 8th NFL franchise to win at least 3 Super Bowl Titles. Of the current AFC West members no other franchise has won a Super Bowl Crown since 1984 when the Oakland Raiders knocked of the Washington Redskins.
Denver head coach Gary Kubiak may have smiled a little more as a fellow Texas A& M alum Von Miller won the Super Bowl MVP. In 1982 when Kubiak was a potential Heismann Trophy candidate the A& M promotion department put out a song to boost his public image, to the music of Flashdance’s “Maniac” instead calling “Kubiak”. The song added a fitting touch to a disappointing senior season.
Turning to basketball the Montana Grizzlies and Lady Griz appear to be heading into a weekend ripe with opportunities to win a pair. Both Southern Utah and Northern Arizona are at the bottom of the Big Sky standings. For the Griz the two opponents bring back memories of close games last season in Missoula. Northern Arizona knocked off Montana in Missoula in January and then the Griz prevailed narrowly in a controversial finish in the Big Sky semi-finals. Southern Utah last season gave the Griz a hard fought battle before being subdued late. It is worth noting the T-Birds and Lumberjacks have each won 4 games on the season.
One highlight of the home stand for the Griz likely will be a showdown between the League’s top two 3-point shooters in league play. Griz guard Walter Wright and NAU’s Felix Rivera-Vega are the only two Big Sky players shooting at better than 50% from beyond the arc.
With Montana’s Saturday night win at Portland Montana coach Travis Decuire passed Mike Montgomery (a mentor of Decuire) with 34 wins in his first two season at the helm with the Griz. Decuire’s old coach Blaine Taylor has the best two year start in Griz history with 44 wins in his first two years.
Speaking of coaches reaching victory plateaus, Wayne Tinkle picked up his 31st win at Oregon State matching his total for his first two seasons in Missoula, reaching win 31 seven games faster than he did at Montana. By the way Thursday night’s win over Utah is one where Larry Krystowiak “out coached” himself as Tres Tinkle had several clutch plays in the late going. Krysko helped coach Tres’ summer league team when Krysko’s son Luc was on the same team as Tres.
Lady Griz star Alycia Sims got to show off her scoring talents Saturday filling the scoring void left by the absence of Mcallie Feller and Sims had a career scoring best. Despite having to take on more of the scoring load Sims still maintains her lead in rebounds in the conference. Sims leads the league in offensive rebounds as well as overall rebounds.
A sweep of the Southern Utah and Northern Arizona trip this weekend would give the Lady Griz 15 wins on the season, something the program has achieved in 35 of Robin selvig previous 37 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.