BOZEMAN — After suffering its first Big Sky Conference loss of the 2019-20 season last Thursday the Montana State women's basketball team bounced back with a huge win on the road against Portland State Saturday.
After starting conference play with six games in 15 days, MSU has a week between that Portland State win and its upcoming game at Eastern Washington this upcoming Saturday. With the extra preparation time, head coach Tricia Binford is electing to give her team some time to heal and recover. That recovery period is crucial for players like Oliana Squires, who is battling injury. An added bonus to the downtime in the early part of the week is that Binford gets some much-needed time to fine-tune the basics ahead of Saturday's showdown with the Eagles.
“It’s the first time we get to go back to some fundamental work," Binford said. "We’ve been doing so much scout prep and catching up on some sickness last week. And so we’re going to really get after our close-outs and get after our box-outs -- just those habits, rebuild and make sure those are in place coming into this matchup this weekend. Obviously we’ll start prepping for Eastern later in the week, but I think it’s a great opportunity to get some kids healthy.”
Montana State (9-6 overall, 5-1 Big Sky) and Eastern Washington (2-11, 1-3) tip off at 3 p.m. Saturday in Cheney, Wash.