Men still No. 1

The Weber State University split games this weekend, losing to the University of Montana Friday, Feb. 5 and beating Montana State University Saturday, Feb. 6. Saturday’s win insured that WSU would keep sole possession of the No. 1 record in the Big Sky Conference.
“It’s really close throughout the whole league,” said Head Coach Randy Rahe. “I think you can go all the way towards the bottom and you can look at teams like Sac State and Eastern Washington. They’ve proven they can play with anybody in our league as well. This league is very even, and even the teams that are struggling and only get a couple wins are good enough to be the upper tier teams.”
On Friday night UM opened up with a 7-0 lead and never looked back, the Wildcats never led in the game. Guards Anthony Johnson and Ryan Staudacher led the Grizzlies with 18 and 16 points respectively. Sophomore Damian Lillard led the Wildcats with 24 points while juniors Lindsey Hughey and Franklin Session added 12 each. Session added in 10 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and one steal.
The difference in the game was free throws, UM shot 28 fouls shots, hitting 21 of them, and WSU only hit six for 10.
“No. 1, I thought that Montana played terrific,” Rahe said. “They were aggressive, they were really on top of their game, very hungry. They are a highly, highly talented team, probably the most talented team in our league. I thought our guys went out there and tried. We got beat by a good team on their court. They had an outstanding crowd, the biggest they’ve had in a few years.”
Guard Nick Hansen didn’t let the team off the hook so easily.
“It was just, we weren’t dialing into the game, we weren’t moving our feet and there’s nothing else that we can say other than that we didn’t come to play and weren’t moving your feet,” Hansen said. “Obviously when you don’t do that you make bad decisions and foul. That’s pretty much what happened.”
Hansen said the team was more focused for the game against MSU, and the Wildcats won 75-71. Lillard added a team-high 25 points along with eight rebounds, three assists and two steals. Session added 14 points and forward Kyle Bullinger scored 10.
“Tonight we all knew how big of a game it is, especially when you’re on the road, anytime you get out with a win it’s a big win for you,” Hansen said. “Our mindset all day was just take it one game at a time. That’s all we do. We were just focused on our game, we had to have a short memory with last night and kindof forget about what happened and just focus on Montana State because they’re a great team. We just had to come out and be aggressive and play our game plan.”
Rahe said he was not surprised at the competitiveness of the league this year.
“We knew the league was going to be like that this year,” Rahe said. “It was going to be very difficult, every game was going to be tough, and it’s the most balanced, toughest league since I’ve been at Weber State. You can lose any game and you can win any game, at home or on the road, it’s that even.”
Hansen said the team wasn’t worried about records, the team didn’t even talk about the fact that if they had lost Saturday’s game they could have been looking at a three-way tie for best record in the Big Sky.
“All we can really focus on are our efforts in the game and coming out and defending and rebounding and being together as a team,” Hansen said. “If we do that then everything else will fall into place. We never really talk about the standings or the statistics we just have to focus on what we have to do to be successful.”