Wednesday, March 20, 2013

First Round CIT Action - Weber State Cruises

Two Big Sky teams qualified for the collegeinsider.com tournament, and both had their opening round matches on Wednesday night.

In one tilt, Weber State absolutely obliterated Cal Poly, despite some concern that they might not play their hardest due to being relegated to the CIT. The Wildcats jumped out to a 45-18 halftime lead en route to a 85-43 victory. Among Weber's dominance... they shot 60% from the floor (compared to 30% for the Mustangs), were 10/22 from behind the arc, and held Cal Poly to 3/14 from downtown.

There were many stars for Weber. Scott Bamforth was a ridiculous 7/9 from downtown, finishing with 23 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists. Kyle Tresnak was 10/11 from the field, finishing with a cool 20 points and 5 rebounds in 22 minutes. Off the bench, Joel Bolomboy had 10 points and 8 rebounds in 17 minutes. Iit was an overwhelming performance from Weber State.

It's not like Cal Poly is a pushover either. They were 18/13, finished 12-6 in the Big West, and lost a close game to Pacific in the conference tournament (Pacific is in the NCAA tournament now). Weber State just crushed them from the get go. I am not sure who Weber State will play in the tournament, but the second round game will be between March 22-24. If I had to guess, my thinking is they will play the winner of the Air Force vs Hawaii tilt.

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In the other game, North Dakota's season came to an end against Northern Iowa, as they fell to the Panthers for the second time this season. They trailed by 13 at halftime before losing 77-66.

In the final game of the year, Troy Huff was again stellar, finishing with an efficient 22 points and 4 steals. He will enter next season as one of the conference player of the year favorites. Jamal Webb also had a solid game, scoring 11 points (all in the second half) while getting 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals.

UND simply couldn't stop UNI in this game, as the Panthers shot 51% from the floor, made nine threes, and got to the stripe 25 times.

North Dakota finishes the year with a record of 16-17. Though they couldn't reach the .500 mark for the year, there was a lot of good things for them to build on for next season.

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