MSU basketball: 'Cats look to step it up on road

By JEFF WELSCH Chronicle Sports Editor

Will the fourth time be the charm? Or fifth? Or sixth?

The Montana State men's basketball team, competitive while falling short in its first three road games against credible opposition, will get three more chances in the next 10 days to punch through the sport's daunting psychological travel barrier.

It starts at 8:35 p.m. (MT) Saturday at former Big Sky Conference rival Nevada (2-4), a team still searching for its sealegs after a 29-5 performance and second-round NCAA Tournament appearance a year ago. A week later, the 'Cats (4-3) play the annual Border War against rebuilding Wyoming (3-3) in Casper, then head south three days after that to take on up-and-coming Arizona State (5-2) in Tempe.

All three will remind MSU of its first three road opponents - UNLV (76-65), Fresno State (86-74) and UC Santa Barbara (76-61) - in that all three will be favored, yet have just enough question marks to be vulnerable to the scrappy 'Cats.

MSU rallied late to put mild scares into UNLV and Fresno State, and had Big West Conference favorite UC Santa Barbara on the ropes until the waning minutes. In each game, the 'Cats staggered at the finish amid the inevitable home-team flurry.

“There's a certain mentality you have to take when you go on the road,” MSU coach Brad Huse said. “We've had a last-five-minute push at home. It seems like when we get on the road, we've had chances in all three of our losses with five minutes to go and haven't made that push.

“But that's life on the road. Your top-echelon teams figure out how to win those games.”

It isn't as if losing any or all of the next three would deal a crushing blow to MSU's season, though a success or two would go a long way toward the program's first winning record in four years. On the flip side, winning one or two would provide a meaningful stepping stone into a Big Sky schedule that won't serve up anything more challenging than the Bobcats' non-conference slate.

Not that Huse has to spend any time driving the point home.

“I like challenging our guys and throwing them out there,” he said. “They know what's happening. Us wanting to make some noise on the road here, I don't have to be real creative. These guys understand what balance has to be struck if they want to make some noise in the Big Sky Conference.”

In Nevada, the ‘Cats will find a team that's a mere shadow of the squad that coasted to its fourth straight Western Athletic Conference title a year ago, has won at least 25 games in four straight seasons and owns a 108-31 record over the past four years.

The Wolf Pack, who left the Big Sky in 1992, lost four starters from a year ago, including all-American forward Nick Fazekas. They have their first three-game losing streak since 2001, though there's no shame in defeats at UNLV (79-67), at home to California (74-68) and at Pacific (70-66).

Nevada, picked to finish third in the WAC behind Utah State and New Mexico State, still has 6-foot-5 senior guard Marcelus Kemp, a preseason Wooden Award prospect who is averaging 18.5 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

Wyoming is starting anew under firebrand former Portland State head coach Heath Schroyer, who succeeded the deposed Steve McClain. The Cowboys are coming off a 91-75 loss Saturday at Akron.

Arizona State was 8-22 and finished last in the Pacific-10 Conference under first-year coach Herb Sendek in 2006-07, but the Sun Devils were a tough matchup late in the year. With one of the nation's better recruiting classes, they are much improved and own neutral-floor victories over LSU and Princeton.

“They're certainly teams that seem to be above us, so we'll be playing as the underdog in all of them,” Huse said. “But at the same time, we can be competitive in all three games, which is reassuring. And still that puts some pressure on us because we want to have that success on the road.

“Any of these would validate some things and give us some confidence going into conference.”

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