Lights host Diggers, Bulldogs

Lights host Diggers, Bulldogs
By Ryan Divish/Havre Daily News Sports Editor/rdivish@havredailynews.com

Lights head coach Shawn Huse will admit that this weekend is important, just not to his team. Huse's plan of keeping his players emotions on even keel by downplaying the importance of the conference standings seems to be working. Very few of them could tell you what place they're in and which teams are ahead of or behind them.

Rather, they are completely focused on completing a sweep of a scrappy Montana Tech squad tonight and avenging an earlier loss to UM-Western on Saturday night.

"Our goal all along is winning all of our games at home," Huse said. "That doesn't change. If you can do that and split on the road, the standings will take care of themselves."

Northern finds itself in a tie for fourth place with Carroll College, bothwith 4-4 records. While it is early to start worrying, a pair of wins would go a long ways in helping Northern grab a precious home game for the first round of the conference tournament.

And these are two games Huse certainly feels his team can win.

Northern defeated Tech 84-76 in Butte earlier this season, and Huse believes if his team can play the type of defense it has displayed in recent weeks it should be fine.

"We need to do a good job of guarding Tech's shooters," he said. "I thought we did a good job in the first game. We can't let them get going."

Guards Shane Sutton and Jeremy Rudolph might not be the biggest or flashiest guards in the Frontier, but if you give them even a hint of an open shot, they will knock it down. The duo has knocked down 122 three-pointers this season and averages close to 23 points per game. But Northern can't overlook Tech's inside game either as Pat Weber, David Scott and Kellen Ori have all played very good basketball of late.

"Their posts are capable of scoring points and are starting to play well," Huse said. "They are starting to get more of a balanced attack."

If there was a team that epitomized the meaning of a balance attack in the Frontier, it would have to be the UM-Western Bulldogs. Western can beat you inside or out, and is capable of having big games from any player or having five or six player score in the teens.

"They are so balanced that you really can't focus on any one player," Huse said. "We need to be very sound and very crisp defensively."

Western defeated Northern 96-84 earlier in the year in a game where Huse said his team played "very poorly." While Northern was flat, Western was crisp shooting over 60 percent from the field in the game.

"Obviously, you hope you don't play as bad or they shoot as well as they did in the last game," Huse said. "But they have the ability to do that to teams every night."

Western is led by 6-7 forward Neil Christiaens and shooting guard Jason Buell. Christiaens is averaging 16.4 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. Buell is third in the Frontier in scoring at 19 points per game and has made a ridiculous 106 three-pointers on the season.

"I think we're very anxious to be back at home," Huse said. "The guys know we have good crowds and it really gets them going."