Northern Colorado men’s basketball earn 2 seed for Big Sky Conference tournament
Men’s and women’s Big Sky tournaments are March 9-13 at Idaho Central Arena
With the Big Sky Conference men’s and women’s basketball regular seasons in the books, team seeds are finalized for the 10-team conference tournaments March 9-13 in Boise, Idaho.
The Northern Colorado men’s team is the No. 2 seed after its win over Northern Arizona in the regular-season finale Monday night and a loss by Weber State.
The UNC women, following a loss to Northern Arizona in its finale, are the fifth seed on a tiebreaker with No. 4 Montana State. UNC and Montana State finished the regular season with 10-8 conference records. They’ll meet in a tournament third-round game at noon Monday, March 11 at Idaho Central Arena.
The UNC men (12-6, 1912) play either No. 7 Northern Arizona or No. 8 Idaho State in the second round at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 10. NAU and Idaho State meet in the first round on Saturday night.
The top two seeds in both the men’s and women’s brackets play second-round games Sunday (March 10) and then have a day off Monday before the tournament semifinals and finals March 12-13.
The UNC women (15-14 overall) started Monday as the fourth seed but dropped to fifth in the standings following their 67-61 home loss to Northern Arizona and Montana State’s 67-65 win over Weber State.
The UNC men’s seed was impacted by their 8274 win Monday at Northern Arizona and by Montana State’s 76-64 win over Weber State in Bozeman.
UNC, Weber State and Montana began the day Monday tied for second place in the conference standings with 11-6 records.
UNC’S win and Weber State’s loss sent the Bears to the second seed and Weber State (11-7, 20-11) to the fourth seed.
Montana, also 12-6 like UNC, is the third seed following its 79-65 win Monday over Idaho State.
Weber State defeated UNC in both games during the regular season, giving the Wildcats the tiebreaker over the Bears with a victory Monday night.
UNC, likewise, swept Montana during the season, allowing the Bears to hold the tiebreaker on the Grizzlies (21-10 overall).
Eastern Washington is the top seed in both the men’s and women’s tournaments.
The Eagles men finished 15-3 in the Big Sky and 2110 overall.
The EWU women go into the conference tournament on a 10-game winning streak. EWU was 16-2 during the regular season. Overall, it has a 26-5 record.
Northern Arizona (15-3, 23-8) is the second seed in the women’s tournament.
The UNC women were picked to finish in sixth place in the Big Sky by conference coaches in a preseason poll and ninth by media.
The UNC men were picked preseason to tie for eighth in the coaches’ poll and ninth in the media poll.
Bears coach Steve Smiley, in his fourth season as head coach, expressed nothing but pride for his guys in a Monday evening post to the social media platform X after the win in Flagstaff. Smiley said in a text message he was “absolutely” happy with the second seed.
“Preseason 9, finish 2,” Smiley texted. “Pretty happy!”
The conference semifinals are Tuesday (March 12). The championship games are Wednesday (March 13). The women’s championship is at 3 p.m., and the men’s championship is scheduled for 9:30 p.m.