UM Sports Trivia | Week of Feb 22

By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN

The Griz will find their last regular season road trip easy in the way of travel, but the two foes awaiting them do not promise to be overly hospitable.

Weber State is tied with UM for the Big Sky Conference lead and gets the chance to host the two teams’ only regular season meeting. The Wildcats feature a trio  of Texans that have fueled their great season thus far. Joel Bolomboy has led the nation in defensive rebounds for much of the season and attracts NBA scouts at each of his games. Last season Jeremy Senglin missed 8 weeks with an injury and the Wildcats ended up eighth in the regular season before narrowly falling to the Griz in the first round of the Big Sky tournament. Even though no home court advantage is in play when Weber hosts Montana do remember that the regular season champ is guaranteed a trip at least to the NIT. Looking ahead to the Conference tounament in two weeks the Griz have won 8 of their last 9 post-season games against Weber.
Between 2009-2012 Montana posted a 68-28 record and won two Big Sky titles and a big reason for that upturn in the program was assistant Bill Evans. Evans took over an Idaho State program in disarray dealing with unhappy players and its two previous head coaches in litigation with the University. Now Evans has the Bengals in a battle for a first-round bye in the league tournament. It has been 7 years since ISU has played in the Big Sky semi-finals. A big reason for the Bengals’ resurgence comes in the form of guard Ethan Telfer, who comes to Pocatello from Coney Island New York. Telfer is among the league leaders in steals assists and shooting.
Montana now has the top two 3-point shooters in the Big Sky as Brandon Gfeller and Walter Wright average the most 3’s per game in league play.
Saturday afternoon Montana fans will say good-bye to three prize seniors. Over the last nearly four seasons the Lady Griz have won 87 and earned two trips to the NCAA along with a run in the WNIT. Fifth year senior Haley Vining has been part of 104 wins meaning that between her and her mom (Marti Kinzler) they were part of over one fourth of the program’s all-time wins. MCCalle Feller has been a major inspiration both on and off the court, highlighted by a record breaking performance in this season’s Lady Griz Classic. As Hannah Doran leaves Monte can be forgiven for tearing up as Doran was initially drawn to UM by the antics of the Champion bear.
In the latest Mock NFL draft by NFL guru Mel Kiper there is a familar name projected as the second overall pick in the 2016 draft. North Dakota State quarterback Christian Wentz might be headed to Clevleand that has the draft’s second choice. Wentz missed several games early in the North Dakota State season before returning to lead the Bison to a fifth FCS national title.

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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.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2016 at 8:00 am
Category Archive: All Featured, All Sports & Recreation, Blogs, Spectator Sports, UM Athletics, University of Montana
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