Grizzly Play

For all of you east-coasters not getting the bear-wolf slugfest:

1:07 pmMontana has pulled out in front, 17-10. Why? The Grizzlies can actually put the ball inside for these strange things called "high-percentage shots". Nevada just keeps putting up threes that clank off the rim. Montana's even switched to a zone to encourage this shooting performance.
1:09 pm Monata's now up nine (21-12) and forcing Nevada to foul. The local CBS station crawl still hasn't come to grips with the fact that the UCLA game in San Diego won't be starting in forty-five minutes.
1:11 pm Ramon Sessions drives and gets something inside, and Nevada seems to be waking up. 23-18 going into Montana's timeout.

Since they've sent me a couple of e-mails and say good things about UNC, I'll mention Think Progress' summary of tournament graduation rates. UNC (989), Duke (978) and UNCW (990) are all comfortably above the minimum requirements. N.C State (922) and Boston College (917) need to hit the books more. And for those members of the Orange Crush holding grudges against Bruce Pearl, Illinois (990) is significantly better than UW-Milwaukee (939) and Tennessee (918).

1:23 pm Mediocre basketball is beginning to take its toll. I'm mentally comparing Montana's center Andrew Strait to Tyler Hansbrough - both have a nice touch in the paint on the offensive end, slipping around multiple defenders. Of course, Hansbrough could outrebound the entire Grizzly team on the other end of the boards, so the comparison kind of falls apart. 29-23 going into the final timeout.

1:29 pm In the last minute, CBS has switched to every other game currently being played before coming back to Nevada-Montana, standing around waiting for play to resume. Strait is still unstoppable on offense. 38-29 Montana.

1:36 pm Nevada got a nice finger roll layup to close out the half. 40-33 Montana though. We're finally getting Winthrop-Tennesee out here.