MSU-Northern Skylights coach Chris Mouat provided reaction following the come-from-behind win over Montana Tech Thursday night. He took the New Media Broadcasters listeners through what the play design was to get Taya Trottier the ball and have her knock down the corner three before the buzzer. He even threw in a little joke at the end.
“She had hit two out of three (3-pointers) and her third (shot) was a bad miss, but she was all we had going from the 3-point line” Mouat said after the game. “That play actually has two or three options. There’s a backdoor (cut) option (and) there’s a post option.”
“We thought maybe we would have that (3-pointer) open and fortunately, (Taya) set a good screen, then came off a screen in the corner and she caught it and didn’t hesitate,” Mouat continued. “My joke with her was if she was going to shoot it to shoot it at the buzzer.”
In basketball, there is always a winner and a loser. Coach Mouat has been on the other side of the coin with the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat and took the time to salute Orediggers coach Jeff Graham and his team on a valiant effort.
“It was a fun win (and) a hard loss for (Montana Tech),” Mouat said. “There are a lot of kids on that team that I recruit. Coach (Jeff) Graham is a friend.”
“This league is really hard,” Mouat continued. “We know how fortunate we were tonight and we’re going to take it and run and get ready for Rocky (Moutain College).”
Mouat said that his team will have to play even better against a talented Battlin’ Bears team that is nationally ranked in the NAIA polls.
“We’re going to have to be a lot better (than we were on Thursday night),” Mouat said. “Rocky is a really great defensive team. They’re big. They’re physical. (They have) excellent guards.”
“There’s no rest here. We’re just on the run the whole time,” Mouat continued. “It’s a busy one (when) we go down to a nationally ranked team and place we traditionally the last few years we really haven’t played very well.”
“I told our kids that we’re going to do everything we can to go (2-0) this weekend and put ourselves as close to the top of the league as we can,” Mouat said.
After coming off the thrilling victory on Thursday night, the question was posed about this year’s Skylights’ team being on a better trajectory than one season ago. Coach Mouat said he was happy to get the win and tried not to play comparisons, but said the end game is get through the season as a contender.
“It’s hard to win in this league,” Mouat said. “We’ve been fortunate to be near the top or at the top for many years and last year we weren’t. I still look back on that team and I’m just super proud that they played their best in the end.”
“Right now for us to get (a win) early, that’s awesome, but there’s really no comparisons I think even though we have similar some kids,” Mouat continued. “What you did last year, you want to play better and right now we’ve done that so far but we have 13 games to go and go out and find a way to win every night.”
The Skylights (7-8, 1-1 in the Frontier) will take on the No.12 Battlin’ Bears (11-3, 0-2) with a Saturday 2pm tip-off from Billings. Listen to the game on KPQX-92.5FM and HiLineToday.com.
