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Montana
State Bobcats Updated 03/17/24 |
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Location: Bozeman, Montana Enrollment: 15,000 Cost of Attendance: $52,000 Venue: Brick Breeden Fieldhouse Arena Capacity: 8,455 Conference: Big Sky (5th) Record: 17-17 (9-9) NET Rank: 208 Committee Rank: Tournament History Appearances: 5 Final Fours: 0 Championships: 0 Win-Loss: 0-5 Most Recent: 2023 #14 seed loss to #3 Kansas St, 65-77 |
Montana State University
Montana State University (MSU) is a public land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. Montana became a state in November 1889. Several cities competed intensely to be the state capital, the city of Bozeman among them. In time, the city of Helena was named the state capital. As a consolation, the state legislature agreed to put the state's land-grant college in Bozeman in 1893. This is now Montana State University. That same year, the state legislature agreed that the state public university will be placed in Missoula as a consolation for Missoula supporting Helena as the state capitol that university is now the University of Montana. More than half of MSU's students are from out-of-state. Although they do not have beach volleyball (no surprise), they do have both men's and women's skiing and rodeo.
About the Bobcats Basketball Team No. 5 seed Montana State beat third-seeded Montana 85-70 on Wednesday night to win the Big Sky Conference tournament championship and an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. MSU has appeared in the NCAA tournament six times, most recently with three consecutive bids in 2022, 2023, and 2024. The arena they play in is named after their first basketball coach Brick Breeden (1935-1954), who also played for then Montana Stage College (1926-1929). Prior to the NIT in 1938 and the NCAA tournament in 1939, there was no national tournament to define the national champion. The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. The organization became well known for presenting awards and trophies for local, national, and international competition. In 1943, the Helm Foundation retroactively selected national champions from 1920 through 1942, selecting Montana State (36-2) as National Champion in 1929. Although that was the final year of Brick Breeden's collegiate playing career, the star of that team was 5'-10" John "Cat" Thompson, selected as the Helms National Player of the year. An interesting rule change introduced for this 1929 season
is the offensive charge by a dribbling player. Brick Breeden spent his entire coaching career at Montana
State compiling a record of 283-198 (.588). Breeden and Thompson played their championship season in the barrel-vaulted Romney Gym, constructed in 1922.
This building was renovated and repurposed and is now home to the Department of Health and Human Development. And they left a little piece of the basketball court in place.
I think that is pretty cool. |
