NCAA Basketball: In-depth look at Montana State senior guard Xavier Bishop
By Bryan Mauro
Montana State does not have much basketball tradition. Xavier Bishop is hoping to help lead the charge and change the fortunes of the program.
Big Sky basketball is one of the NCAA Basketball mid-major conferences that gets virtually no publicity nationally. There are a ton of reasons for that. One the games are all played in Pacific and Mountain time zones meaning the majority of the country won’t see them play. Outside of the top half of the league, the rest of the schools in the league have not been great historically. The Big Sky has quality basketball and some very accomplished players.
The conference has been dominated for several years by the Montana Grizzlies, with the Northern Colorado Bears and the Eastern Washington Eagles not far behind. Many fans fail to realize that the conference has one of the nation’s most successful programs in the Weber State Wildcats. Weber State ranks in the top 30 nationally in all-time winning percentage. So, the conference while small and unknown to many fans does have a long and storied history.
The Montana State Bobcats may not have the long-storied tradition as some of the other teams but what they can claim is a long list of tremendous, high scoring guards that have come through the program. Starting with head coach Danny Sprinkle, Coach set the precedent for great scoring guards and coach Sprinkle was the catalyst for the last Montana State NCAA tournament appearance. Tyler Hall is the leading scorer in program history and has all kinds of records on offense that probably will never be broken. Last season the Bobcats saw another great all-conference guard leave to graduation. Harald Frey was the leader for Coach Sprinkle and his first team in Bozeman.
This season coach Sprinkle is going to have another great lead guard to guide his team. This time is it via the transfer market. Xavier Bishop finally gets to play after sitting out a year via his transfer from Missouri-Kansas City. Bishop is hoping to be the next great guard to have put on a Montana State uniform.