Montana State Men’s Basketball Preview (part 2)

This is the second part of my two part series looking at the Montana State men’s basketball program players. In this post I am looking at the front court players that included the power forward (4) and the center (5)

Front Court (power forward and center)
The front court will be very untested this year aside from All-Conference player Bobby Howard there is not a lot of experience there. It will be manned by returnees but the back up will all be new comers.

Bobby Howard 6-7 (PF)
The All-Conference player is going to counted on to play major minutes this coming season and be a big point and rebounding producer for the Bobcats. Howard significantly improved his shooting percentages last season which has always been a problem the previous two year, and he need to continue to be a very effective player for the Bobcats. Reports are that Bobby physically looks the best he has ever looked and playing even better. For the Bobcats to be successful they will need a very productive senior campaign from Howard.

Cody Anderson 6-10 (C)
As the only returning experienced big man on the Bobcat roster Anderson will be looked on to anchor the center position. I have heard that Anderson has slimmed down some since last year, but I do not expect him to be a 30-35 minutes a game player. He will need a solid back up. A good shooter, there is hope that he can become a solid scoring option for the Bobcats. He also has improved his rebounding.

Early look at the 2010-11 Bobcat Men

With summer approaching and recruiting for 2010 over , with the possible exception of walk-on, I thought I would take a preliminary look at the next years Bobcat men’s team. Below I will break it down who I think, as of now are projected starters, major rotation guys as well as bench players, and finally I will give you my depth chart as of the first week in June. As always I reserve the right to change my mind come this fall.

Favorites for Starting positions

Bobby Howard combo forward– Howard really came on strong for the Bobcats in conference season last year earning First Team All Conference. He averaged 15 points and 7 rebounds a game during conference and the coaches will be looking to matching or bettering those numbers especially the rebounding next season. I think Howard will be the guy who will be facing pressure to be the leader on and off the court, but he should be up to the challenge. Look for the Bobcats to look to play Howard at the small forward some next year also.

Eric Rush point shooting and wing guard – Like Howard, Rush is going to looked at to be a leader for this team. Rush was also a double digit scorer for the Bobcat, but his biggest asset is flexibility to play any where from the point to the small forward. I see him starting at the shooting guard, but he could start at the point or wing if another player emerges at the shooting guard. Where ever he starts he will play all 3 perimeter spots for the Bobcats and they will need to get 30-35 minutes a game from Rush.

Danny Piepoli shooting guard / small forward – After spending the past two years as a key reserve, Piepoli will be looked to hold down the other wing position along side Rush. Danny has steadily improved his game over the last two years and his emergence as the leading contender for an open starting position, led to Austin Brown to transfer looking for a place he could start. The Bobcats will be very young next year as with Rush the Coaches will be looking for Piepoli to give them a solid 30-35 minutes a game.

Rod Singleton point guard – Singleton was recruited to be the Bobcats starting point guard for 2010, so at this point you have to pencil him as the starting point guard. Singleton is a pure point guard but can also score the ball so he may get some looks as a shooting guard if Trujeque becomes a viable option at the point. Of the four player in this Singleton is the one player I could see possibly moved out of the starting line up. If a player like Allou or McCall make a strong argument for a starting role, do not be surprised if Huse move Rush to the starting point guard to make room in the starting five, but it would take a very strong effort by one of these players to move Singleton out.

Rating Bobcat 2010 Basketball Class (Part 1)

This blog has is mainly a basketball recruiting blog so I really wanted to try to do an in-depth look at the Montana State men’s basketball 2010 recruiting class. I also wanted to try not to cover ground that has already been covered a half dozen times here and else where. I wanted to be able to rate this class in my own way but also give anyone else who may be reading this post the ability to rate it themselves. You may not have your own blog but in your own mind you can hopefully read this and come up with your own mental grade. The first part of this post will be the looking at the individual player who make up the 2010 class. Part two will putting it all together and grading out the different aspects of the class and an over all grade.

You do not have to agree with me, I would prefer you make up your own mind.

Talent:

This clearly is the best recruiting class Brad Huse has put together since coming to Montana State. I am not going to rate the athletes 1-7, but instead talk about them in tiers. If you want an excellent article on ranking the prospects check out Will Holden’s great article here. I helped Will with this article and would have to agree with how he ranked the athletes. I would, though, like to point out that in my opinion there are very little difference between #1-3. I also think come next September and the recruits have had a chance to work on their game and body’s over the summer, this ranking could have significant changes. I have seen recruits shoot up the depth chart significantly by working their butts off over the summer and others who dropped because they did not.

Signing Day Preview: Bobcat Men

This Wednesday will be the start of the spring signing day which will go until mid May and I wanted to update on various rumors and as well as my opinion (guess) on what the four programs are doing and who they could sign during the late period.

The current trend that all four programs have been following the past 3-4 years is to primarily sign high school kids in the early period and JC transfers in the late period, and this year they look to no different.

Bobcat Men:

Signed in the Fall:

Blake Brumwell 6-7 240 Center – Big Sandy, MT
Chris McCall 6-4 175 Shooting Guard – Las Vegas, MT
Casey Trujeque 5-7 165 Point Guard – Los Angeles, CA
Shawn Reid 6-5 195 Forward / Guard– Post Falls, CA

Commits

Jordan Salley 6-7 230 – Forward /Center – Los Angeles, CA

Salley looks to be on board and ready to sign. Considering one of his social networking pages has the Bobcat logo plastered all over it, it looks like a pretty safe bet. His rehab for his knee injury last June seems to be coming around well, he is working out and should be ready to go by this summer.

Tre Johnson 6-7 215 – Combo Forward – Reno NV

Johnson seems to be on board to sign with the Bobcats. There 2-3 newspaper articles last week about his commit to MSU some with short interviews. Still I will feel better after Wednesday. Johnson was also recruited by Boise State and Santa Clara, these were the two schools involved in poaching former Bobcat commit Tre Nichols. I am still a little nervous.

Bobcats get a commit from Tre Johnson

Tre Johnson 6-7 Hug High School Reno Nevada

I have heard that the Bobcat basketball staff has received a commitment from Tre Johnson of Hug High school in Reno Nevada. Johnson is a 6-7 200 pound power forward prospect who led Hug to a 15-10 record and named to the Maxpreps.com Nevada: “Unofficial” all-state basketball team, as well as numerous other all conference/State teams.

Johnson senior year he averaged 19 points, 4 blocks, 10 rebounds, 2 steals a game while shooting 58% from the field, 60% from three point range (although he only had 5 attempts) and 65% from the free throw line.

Johnson is a major athlete, with good speed and great jumps. He was getting a lot of attention from D-1 bowl division teams as a wide receiver, but he wanted to play basketball in college – smart kid. I do not think the Bobcats have seen an athlete of his caliber on the front line in a very long time. Offensively I hear he still has a tremendous upside, even beyond what is now considered to be a great get for a Big Sky school. Johnson will contribute next year and will be another forward (along with commit Jordan Salley) who can play above the rim.

Johnson played on the same AAU team as fall Bobcat signee Chris McCall. I don’t know how much this had to do with his decision, but I think it does show the work both Huse and Assistant coach Starr did to develop a good relationship with the Powerful Las Vegas Prospects AAU team.

It has been no secret I have been coveting Johnson all since last summer and you can read more about him here.

Odds and Ends: Prospects

Hi folks I have a handful of interesting and some sad, odds and ends about some of the Griz and Bobcat basketball signees / commits that I thought I might share. Some might be a little older than others, but I hope it is something you find interesting.

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• Danny Little from Billings Skyview and Montana State 2011 commit was featured in a Q. and A. article today by the Billing Gazette. Little talks about Skyview’s current season as well as why he choose to commit to the Bobcat program. You should check it out here.

• Chris McCall from Cheyenne high school in Nevada and a Bobcat 2010 signee was scheduled to play his first game of the post season this past Wednesday, but that did not happen. The Sunset Region boy’s basketball playoffs were postponed this week when Western high school filed in court complaint and motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction was granted until the matter could be heard. At issue Western was forced to forfeit 4 games because a player was ruled ineligible. The court handed down a ruling earlier today giving Western 2 games back. The Sunset Region is now scrambling to reschedule the tourney.

Signing day Odds and ends

I really have not done an odds and ends post in quite some time, mainly because I have not been coming across enough little pieces of info that would warrant a whole column, but here is one.

• I forgot to mention that a few other Montana high school athletes should be signing letter of intents with Division teams today, Namely Josh Huestis with the Stanford men’s program and Jordan Phau with Weber State women’s program. If I have missed someone please let me know.

• To my surprise Libby’s 6-1 forward Jackie Mee will not sign with a d-1 team this fall. In my humble (and sometime wrong) opinion she is at least as talented as some of the Montana women who will be signing today. Before I get hate mail this is not a knock on any one, but an acknowledgment that Mee is a very good player.

• There was a nice article on Bobcat recruit /Signee Casey Trujeque and two other of his Price high school teammates were featured in a LA Times article yesterday. The main thrust of the article was about how tiny Price high school will have three players signing letters of intent today with Division 1 schools. One thing to remember though, while Price has a student population of about 100, for some odd reason a lot of the better high school students in the area seem to find themselves at Price high school. Imagine that!

For the record: Price’s, Richard Solomon and Allen Crabbe will sign with California and Casey Trujeque will sign with Montana State.

Go here to read the whole article.

Bobcats recruit: Tre Johnson

Two sport athlete Tre Johnson is receiving a lot of recruiting interest from a lot of different schools including Montana State. Johnson is a 6-7 200 pound major athlete who is receiving interest in Basketball as a power forward and football as a wide receiver. He plays for Hug high school in Reno Nevada, currently this week end was competing for the Las Vegas Prospect AAU team in the large Vegas tourneys.

In Basketball

Johnson averaged 12 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks a game as a sophomore, and 15 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks this past year. He was named first-team All-North by the Reno Gazette Journal as a junior. He is known as a high energy, extremely athletic player who is just now starting to come into his own as a basketball. The term big upside keeps being mentioned.

In Football