Griz basketball looks forward to next year after difficult loss

On the heals of a tough loss that could have sent the University of Montana men’s basketball team to the Big Sky Conference championship game, the players and coaches were forced to ride home on a bus for eight hours with the loss fresh in their minds.

“It was a long trip home,” UM junior center Andrew Strait said.

One might think that the last thing on most of the players’ minds was more basketball – wrong.

Within a couple of hours of returning to Missoula from Ogden, Utah, after losing to Northern Arizona 78-71, UM freshman Cameron Rundles and a few teammates went to the University’s Recreational Center to get back on the hardwood and play some pickup basketball.

“Basketball is my life and I love it,” said Rundles, who was named the Big Sky Conference freshman of the year.

After Tuesday night’s loss, a lot of the players had a hard time accepting the fact that their season was over, especially considering that the Griz had made the NCAA Tournament the last two years.

“It kind of hasn’t set in yet,” Strait said. “But it will in the coming days when class is over and we don’t have to go to practice.”

For some of the players watching Wednesday night conference’s championship game (a 88-80 win by Weber State over NAU) on TV made things even worse, as they were reminded of what could have been.
“We had our chances and we just didn’t get it done,” said Rundles as he watched the championship on TV. “Next year, I don’t want to have this feeling, so I just have to work hard in the off-season, along with all my teammates.”

Now the players and coaches have a chance to rest up and regroup, which for a few will be some much-needed time off.

“I’m pretty beat and tired, honestly,” said sophomore forward Jordan Hasquet, who battled a leg injury and an undisclosed illness toward the end of the season. “At the end of the season you’re always pretty exhausted, but I pretty much had nothing left in the tank.”

For first-year head coach Wayne Tinkle there will be little time for rest. Tinkle, who was unavailable for comment for this story, arrived back in Missoula at about 3:30 Wednesday afternoon and left to go recruiting Thursday morning at 10.

After back-to-back trips to the Big Dance, some of the players expected a lot more out of this year’s team that went 17-15 after going 24-7 in 2005-2006.

“We had so much talent,” senior forward Stuart Mayes said. “We had nine people coming back that went to the NCAA Tournament and we just couldn’t get it together. We underachieved a lot.”

Montana’s four seniors will have to end their careers on a sour note, but for those returning there is quite a bit of promise for next year’s team.

The team’s two leading scorers, Strait and Hasquet, will be returning and with another year under his belt, Rundles should improve on his freshman campaign.

“I think everyone’s looking ahead to next year,” Strait said. “We got a real talented group of guys coming back.”